


Destiny: Grid War

by swordoffortress



Category: Destiny (Video Games), Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Uprising
Genre: F/M, Game: Destiny 2: Season of Dawn, Gen, Post-Red War (Destiny), Red Legion (Destiny)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27306280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordoffortress/pseuds/swordoffortress
Summary: Set during the events of Destiny 2: Shadowkeep (Season of Dawn) and post the events of Tron: Uprising.(Alternate Universe for both properties)After rescuing the legendary Saint-14, the Corridors of Time begin to spontaneously collapse leaving the Guardian with two choices: be erased from the timeline, or take a leap of faith into an unknown conflicted world. What caused the Corridor to collapse? What is the Red Legion remnant's true intent? Why here? All of these answers in -- Destiny: Grid War.
Relationships: Ghost & Guardian (Destiny), Paige (Tron)/Male Guardian (Destiny)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	1. Prologue

**Chapter 1: Prologue**

“Save some Vex for me my friend! I’m trapped not dead!” the Guardian heard through his comm system. As encouraging as it was to be cheer led by a legend, one who was thought to be dead, he knew that belief would soon become a harsh reality if he failed to stave off the copper-colored drones. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Agioktis, The Martyr Mind diverting its remaining arc energy into regenerating its armor behind an impenetrable barrier.

The fight between the two of them had been going on for some time, long enough for both of them to look as though they had gone twelve rounds in the corrosive lakes of Venus and it was beginning to take its toll, especially on the great Vex machine. Having been built with the sole purpose to trap and kill one guardian had been draining enough, but having to maintain the force field and simultaneously fight one of the most powerful Titans currently active in the Sol system had decidedly put Agioktis on the backs of its feet.

“Ghost, can you give me a readout on Martyr Mind’s health?” the Guardian asked with a hint of urgency in his voice after diving for cover behind the nearest hardened radiolarian structure. He wanted nothing more than to end this fight before that machine found a way to restore itself.

“Checking,” his Ghost replied, “Reading numerous system failures. Seems like you managed to damage its regeneration circuitry.” The guardian sighed; this was it. He was glad that the Vex were not more creative when designing their Minds, giving them many of the same weaknesses as their rank and file forces. Out of nowhere a large blast of void energy slammed into the pillar like structure above them, vaporizing the debris in a spectacular purple mist. Peering around the corner, the Guardian saw his key to finishing this once and for all. Standing on the adjacent tower was a massive Vex Minotaur, gun aimed at the lower half of Guardian’s pillar and charging up to fire another shot. Thinking quickly, the Guardian sprinted out of the way just as the bottom half of what was once his cover was engulfed in a purple flame.

“I hope you have some sort of plan for dealing with that,” Ghost chided nervously.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” the Guardian retorted, “besides, when do I ever not have a plan?”

“Head butting does not count!” If Ghost had eyes, he imaged them rolling in the most dramatic way possible.

“Really, well when this is all over you can go tell that to Saint, personally,” the Guardian chuckled, “I would love to hear how that conversation would go.” Another near miss by the Minotaur brought the conversation back to relevancy. “Do you have any ideas, Saint’s prison guard here is getting on my nerves more than that Mad Warden in the Prison of Elders!”

“A Vex that big must rely on some sort of extra-large power source to feed it--” Ghost replied before being cut off.

“And if that’s the case” the Guardian took a short pause, “it should have some sort of means of regulating and storing the energy, like a large capacitor!” Looking over his right shoulder he saw the Minotaur teleport up to a ledge overlooking the arena like battlefield. The added distance made the two’s inevitable encounter a bit trickier, at least with his currently equipped conventional weapons. _Go Figure_ was a kinetic pulse rifle which while accurate and generally effective against the standard grunts he faced, it didn’t stand a chance at that range and against the Minotaur’s personal shields. His other options were _Riskrunner_ and _Hammerhead,_ the former being an SMG which was completely useless at that far of a range. _Hammerhead_ could potentially be useful especially as its energy signature matched that of the Minotaur’s shields and could be used to take them down before shredding it to pieces. Looking back to the shield wall Agioktis was cowering behind. A grin appeared on the Guardian’s face.

“I can’t read your thoughts, but I sense a Titan plan coming.” Ghost sarcastically called out. The Guardian said nothing, instead charging in the direction of the Minotaur, quickly closing the distance. Channeling his light into his muscles, he jumped onto the nearest pillar, proceeding to parkour from that one to another, narrowly missing the seemingly desperate shots of the Minotaurs main weapon. Now facing his target, the Guardian pulled out _Hammerhead_ quickly fired an array of shots at the cylindrical purple shield encompassing his Vex opponent. Within second a violet burst shattered the barrier knocking the Minotaur back a few feet and disorienting it. Now was his chance, the Guardian had only a matter of seconds before the Vex’s shields came back up and there was still around 70 feet to cover. Blue arc energy began to crackle around the Guardian, beginning at his fists and rapidly spreading over the rest of his armor morphing into a solid blue glow of electrical buildup. Within a second the Guardian exploded off the pillar he had been planted on, cracking it upon liftoff, and was flying through the air at an incredible speed.

Even Saint-14, still entangled in the Martyr Mind’s vex trap let out a whistle at the impressive display of light from the Guardian. It was not long before the show was over as the Guardian slammed into the Minotaur disintegrating its frame. However, an orb of super charged energy remained, presumably the capacitor, fell out and rolled to the foot of the Guardian. The orb was so densely packed with energy that it became solid albeit highly unstable. The Guardian picked it up and immediately winced in pain, feeling the effects of the runoff energy dissipating from the sphere. “Now where to put this?” he managed to choke out.

“Scanning,” Ghost replied, “there appears to be some sort of power conduit located to the far left Martyr Mind’s shield wall. I’ll mark it on your HUD.” Jumping down the wall, tanking a few shots along the way from half destroyed Vex Goblins that were running like headless chickens across the battlefield, the Guardian carefully made his way to the drop off zone, the power orb greatly affecting his running speed. The platform he was now on gently glowed as he approached as if drawn to the power in his hand.

“You want this?” He said under his breath to no one in particular, “Here it comes!” He then slammed the orb into the ground with as much force as he could muster where it shattered, the energy initially exploding outwards before be absorbed by the platform. Immediately, Agioktis’ wall dropped revealing the sparking and nearly completely deformed Vex mind.

Realizing it would probably fail its directive if this guardian was left free on the battlefield much longer, the Martyr Mind reasoned that trapping him the same way Saint was would give him a chance to change the outcome of the current course of events. While it couldn’t drain him of his light as it could Saint-14's, disabling him would temporarily give the Vex Mind a chance to take down both opponents. The only unknown variable is how fast a guardian could regain its connection to the light after being drained as the only thing keeping Saint-14 at bay was the specially designed prison. Opting to taker its chances, it slammed Mercury’s ground causing a white light to engulf the Guardian.

When the light cleared, the Guardian found himself floating in Saint-14's cage. While he still had his light, there wasn’t much he could do to break free. “This must be how Cayde felt during that time of Nessus,” the Guardian thought to himself. The cage’s power source was Mercury itself and he was not sure if a Guardian could even break free. Not that he was given time to figure it out. Quickly approaching was the massive frame of Agioktis, its damage appearing worse than before, although it showed no less determined to fulfill its programming. While shaking, the Mind slowly raised its gun at the now trapped Guardian.

“Well, this is it!” Ghost sighed. If he had a heart, he imagined that now would be the time that he would be experiencing that sinking feeling of sadness and disappointment.

Suddenly over the clanking and grinding of Martyr Mind’s destroyed and warped joints, a battle cry could be heard, “I can feel the light in my bones!”

The Guardian looked at the ledge directly behind the Vex Mind and saw Saint-14 climb up and activate his Sentinel Shield. “Martyr Mind! Time to die!” Saint-14 yelled as he long jumped off the ledge and slammed his shield into the back of the Vex, taking it down as it made a loud final groan.

The cage holding the Guardian then disappeared around him, dropping him to the dusty grounds of Mercury. He looked out over Mercury’s bleak horizon. It had been a long time since he had been to a simulation where the Vex managed to snuff out the sun, turning it from a fiery orange to a cool, lifeless blue. The sands covering Mercury reflecting the change in the sun’s color. The Guardian sighed, he was glad that this future was just a simulation in the Infinite Forest and that outside its’ gates the sun still burned strong. He turned around when he heard Saint-14's footsteps approaching from behind him.

“It's been a long time my friend. I’ve chased your memory for centuries,” Saint said. Brushing the dirt off his hands he continued, “You should go now. Those who could kill me are dead. You’ve made sure of that.”

“And what if the Vex take your light again?” Ghost asked curiously, not entirely convinced that the threat on Saint-14's life was over.

Shaking his head Saint responded, “Impossible. It cost them everything to build the Martyr Mind. When you crushed it, they were doomed.”

“You want us to leave you? You’ll be stuck here for years.” Ghost continued to query.

As he said that, Vex transmat signatures began to appear on the ridge behind Saint. “You’ve both done plenty,” he replied. “Just open the Infinite Forest gate for me. I’ll meet you the long way around, at the entrance.” Saint began to walk away as more Vex appeared in what was just a few moments earlier a completely deserted arena. With his back turned to the Guardian he shouted, “What’s a few more years of fighting?”

With the nod the Guardian used Osiris’ artifact to reopen the gateway to the Corridors of Time. Stepping through and closing the gate behind him he was met with Corridor’s markedly white expanse say for the monochromatic path in front of him. While he was confident that Saint could handle the remaining Vex grunts on his end of the portal, there was still some anxiety clinging to the back of his mind about the situation. The Infinite Forest was massive, if not infinite, and it could have redundancies that even Osiris, who had spent years with his hundreds of echoes exploring it with great scrutiny may be unaware of. It wouldn’t be the first time that an old Vex Mind managed to find a way of reappearing and seizing control of the forest. The Root Mind, Dendron has been a consistent challenge, reappearing, again and again, to try to take over the power vacuum left by Panoptes’ destruction.

But that was the past, right now there were greater threats regarding the Infinite Forest and the Corridors of Time. While rescuing Saint-14 had become a primary objective for the Guardian, the actual reason for coming into the Corridors of Time remain. The Cabal discovered Osiris’ Sundial Prototype; the mechanism needed to get into the Vex time stream on Mercury. Ever since the Red War they had been trying to find ways of changing the course of events whether it had been to manipulate the Warmind on Mars, or go back into the past and destroy humanity before it encountered The Traveler.

The Guardian paused and looked around, he was so lost in thought he hadn’t even realized that he had exited the first corridor and had made into a large circular room with multiple pathways. The one marking the way out was currently lit up and he began to make his way towards it, this time with a little more haste in his step. Just as he reached the triangular doorway there was a loud rumbling that echoed through the normally static sounding corridors. It was followed by an odd high-pitched chant.

“You hear that?” The Guardian asked his Ghost.

“Cross-referencing with my known sound archive. That sounds like a Psion. Why would we be hearing a--” he cut himself off. “Run!”

The farthest most walls and floor of the room the Guardian was standing in began to disintegrate, increasing with speed as it approached his position. Instinctively, he turned and ran through the doorway into another corridor. Echoing throughout the white void another voice could be heard. This one was different. It was similar to the female AI voices at the tower.

“Simulation seed, G-9-R-5-I-4-D-3 selected. Applying to sundial matrix. Prepare for time stream reformatting. Full corridor Deresolution in...10...”

The corridor pathway behind the Guardian began to disappear, catching up to him even at full sprint.

“8...” The doorway was in sight. Was it the one needed to get out of the Sundial? Neither the Guardian nor his Ghost knew the answer to that, however, compared to what was happening behind them they were willing to take that risk.

“6...” Finally making it to the door, the Guardian ran through just as the pathway completely vanished behind him. Looking across the circular room he was now in, he saw another doorway light up. Still running, he began to make his way to it until he suddenly stopped watching it vanish alongside all the other doorways in that room.

“5...”

“Great,” he muttered to himself, “about to get deleted from all of time.

Standing in the center of the room as the floor continued to dissolve around him, he curiously peered over what remained. To his shock what he saw was not a white expanse, but a massive dark blue portal. Looking closer, being careful not to touch the edges of floor in case it erased him instantly, he saw what appeared to be city of some kind.

“3...” Realizing that he didn’t have much time left either way he made a decision.

“Ghost, I need you to transmat into my helmet.” He ordered. The Ghost trusting his Guardian’s judgement did as he was told.

“2..."

“And now!” The Guardian yelled as he sprinted towards the end of the floor, jumping just before he touched its edge. “Hang on!”

“Hang on with what? I think your forgetting I don’t have any hands.” Replied his Ghost, nervousness clearly embedded in his voice.

 _“Of course he has to make a snarky response during a time like this,”_ Guardian thought., suppressing the urge to roll his eyes.

“1...” As they fell, the Guardian looked once more at the portal, noting its much-decreased size from what it was. More importantly, a concern arose that they would not make it in time. He quickly turned over and straightened his body out, accelerating their fall towards it.

“Timeline deresolution complete,” the voice calmly said.


	2. The Crash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so it begins...

**Chapter 2: The Crash**

Falling backside first towards the portal, The Guardian looked up just in time to see the last of the room he had been in vanish. Any thoughts of the consequences of what that meant were suddenly disrupted as his back slammed into the portal. Hard was not what he was expecting the opening to feel like. Pain shot through his body as he drifted in and out of consciousness while he fell through the dark blue sky. At one point while he was facing the ground he noticed, **the ground,** specifically its rapid approach. Using whatever light energy he could muster, the Titan tried to slow his decent in a futile attempt to minimize the damage from his impact, which at his current speed was all but inevitable. Seconds later he slammed into the ground back first. Staring up at the sky as he saw the portal finally close with little fanfare. His vision went black as he fell unconscious.

_______________________________________

Lying on top of her bed, Paige stared up at the ceiling. The past twenty cycles had begun to take a heavy toll on her, both physically and emotionally. The threat of an uprising in Argon had been quelled, CLU’s arrival had seen to that. The Renegade, the program who had given her so much trouble since Tesler’s arrival to the city had finally been apprehended by a unit of Black Guards and an unknown program in a completely blacked out suit save for a few orange edge-lights and a dominant T symbol marking the center chest. They had tracked him fleeing an Occupation refueling depot after sabotaging one of the tower’s regulation systems, causing it to explode. She remembered seeing almost visual excitement overcome CLU’s normally carefree demeanor when the program dragged The Renegade into throne room. However, his interest clearly did not lie with the unconscious body now crumpled on the floor, but with the unknown masked program who had entered with it. After taking a few moments too look over the mysterious program, CLU’s attention was finally brought back to the perpetrator of this whole mess.

It was then that his identity was finally revealed. It was Beck, the mechanic from the train to Bismuth, the one she had gone on several dates with. Upon this discovery she used all of her training’s discipline not to visibly show any anger or betrayal in the presence of her superior officers, or Pavel who she recalled was grinning upon this revelation, no doubt because he remembered seeing the two of them together when he came to arrest her during their snooker date. She grimaced to herself, although not sure if came from the regret that she grew attached to Beck who seemed to have no issues lying to her, or the feeling that Pavel would probably try to find a way of using this against her in the future.

She sat up and stared out of her window over Argon, taking in its skyline from the perch of the command ship. Paige squinted her eyes a bit to focus on the city, not to take in its beauty, but as if she were looking for something. She sighed, maybe The Renegade er, Beck had rubbed off onto her a bit. While her loyalty was still to the Occupation, CLU’s use of force took her by surprise, damaging the image she had held of his character irreparably. Where she saw Tesler as an honorable, albeit sometimes brutal leader, his character had been built from his time fighting the treacherous ISOs he had saved her from, she never thought of him as cruel.

 _“Pavel was cruel,”_ Paige thought to herself. She knew what he had done to those prisoners while experimenting with the upgrade disk that night. She felt herself suddenly scowl, the same night she and Beck had gone sky diving together.

_Users! Why does everything have to be so interconnected?_

She still felt betrayed. Had Beck just been using her the whole time, pretending to like her in case she let some vital information slip. Had he betrayed her when she had her memory altered simply so that he would have leverage to turn her against the Occupation? She shook her head in a vain attempt to get rid of those thoughts. After Beck had been revealed as the Renegade, CLU had also shown his true colors. He wasn’t the compassionate, peace seeking perfectionist that she imagined. After ordering the unknown program away, he had requested that Dyson prepare him for his public debut. A cycle later when she next saw him, he had been completely mutilated. Scars now ran across his entire body from the bottom of his calf through his left eye, glowing a soft teal glow as the occasional cube fell off. It was clear that this damage had been done by hand and not through struggle or combat. The scene made her medical program boil to the surface– Renegade or not, this was horrific and cruel.

Thinking back to that moment made her feel sick. Had Beck been right about the Occupation and its goals? She remembered defending CLU as she felt her values aligned with his perfectly, but now, that mirage had dissipated leaving only that memory in the forefront of her mind.

Those traitorous questions did not matter now though. After being dragged to the center of Argon Square with his wounds visible for all to look at, the spark of the uprising dissipated quickly. The revolution’s symbol of hope had been defeated by CLU, and fear of a similar fate quelled any remaining stubborn followers from speaking up let alone gather citywide support. It was over. The last time she saw Beck, he was being escorted onto CLU’s command ship headed back to Tron City, probably to be thrown into the games where he would most certainly be derezzed.

_Good riddance!_

Her recollective thoughts were suddenly jarred away by an odd flash of light over the city followed by the appearance of an indescribable object. She couldn’t make out what it was exactly from her perspective, but it was triangular in shape and bright white. Moments later there was what looked like minor explosion directly beneath it followed by the triangular object’s immediate disappearance. “What in Flynn’s name was that?” Paige muttered quietly. 

Before she could even begin to come up with any blind guesses her quarter’s intercom system blared to life. “Commander Paige, report to the throne room!” Tesler bellowed, the grumbling in his voice still managing to make it through the small speaker. Knowing it was best to not keep her Commanding Officer waiting, she shot up from her bed and made her way to the door. Before leaving she stopped and briefly turned around to take one more look out over the city where the mysterious object had been sighted, but saw nothing.

 _“Maybe Tesler has some idea as to what that was,”_ she thought to herself before continuing the trek to the General’s location.

When she arrived, she saw Pavel was already standing beside Tesler looking out over Argon. She started towards the General’s left opposite of her colleague, but abruptly stopped when he put his hand up. Without turning away from the window, he spoke first. “As I’m sure you noticed, there has been a disturbance in sector 112,” he spoke with only a hint urgency in his voice. “I want you to investigate the area, gather whatever intelligence you can. If you are given the opportunity to find who caused this then so be it, but,” he paused, “keep this incident quiet using whatever means you can.”

Paige nodded. “Yes sir!” she said. He was hiding something. Of course, she didn’t know exactly what he was thinking, but Paige had known her mentor long enough to know when he was not being entirely truthful.

“Good!” his normal composure returning to his stature. “You’re dismissed!”

She turned and walked out, the doors of the throne room snapping shut behind her. This situation was beginning to put her on edge. There was an increasing number of unanswered questions, a number she figured wasn’t going to diminish anytime soon. Ever since she had arrived in Argon, there had been constant action, not that she minded. She certainly was not bored, however an uneventful cycle or two would not have hurt. She walked towards the ship’s exit ramp and pulled out her baton, cracking it open to rez her orange light cycle.

 _“Well,”_ she thought to herself, “ _here we go_ ,” before racing down the ramp towards section 112.

_______________________________________

The Guardian’s eyes suddenly shot open. While jarring, it was not a feeling that was entirely unknown to him.

“Eyes up Guardian” his Ghost yelled as he flew back a few feet to give room for the light bearer to get up.

Through he was still a bit groggy, he took a brief glance around the crash site. Apart from the small crater he had just gotten up from, he was surprised to see how intact everything was. Turning towards his Ghost he asked, “How long was I down for?”

“Only a minute or two. I had to make sure the area was clear of any observers. I think it would be best if we limited any obvious use of the light for a while and try to lay low until we can figure out where we are, and how we got here.” his Ghost replied.

Hearing that last suggestion from his Ghost made the Guardian pause. Now that he finally had a clearer head he noticed more of the specific details in his surroundings. Everything was made of very flat textures, usually of a single consistent color, mostly black, with bright lines of light running along the edges. This design language was present not just on the streets, but the buildings as well. Looking back at the crater he had made during his fall, he noticed that there wasn’t so much a dent formed by the impact as there was a mess of cubes which must have been displaced from his landing area. He couldn’t help picking one of the cubes up out of curiosity. “Fascinating,” he muttered to himself, examining it.

Ghost, interrupting his train of thought interjected himself into the silence. “Hey, so as much as I want to stay and marvel over how impressive your landing was, this area is going to be a hotspot to whatever security forces this place has very soon.”

The Guardian rolled his eyes but was forced to agree. He could hear voices nearby, and the last thing he wanted was to get into a conversation with one the locals while having no intel on the area. He saw a nearby alleyway and began to make his way down it, making sure to stay in the shadows as much as possible. He stopped; voices could be heard up ahead. Sliding up against the wall, he slowly pushed forward to end of the alley. As he approached the end, he could begin to make out what the voices saying. Listening, he leaned closer, being careful not to slip into their field of view.

“How long are we supposed to guard this area?” one of them asked.

“General Tesler said that Commander Paige would be here shortly, I assume that is when we will be dismissed,” replied the other guard.

“What do you think it is? You saw it happen right, it looked like the sky just opened up,” the first guard said.

 _“Trust me, it’s probably best that you don’t know_ ,” the Guardian thought to himself.

“Relax, it’s probably just one of The Renegade’s few remaining zealots trying to relive past glory,” he paused turning to his friend, “you don’t think it’s the actually the Renegade do you?”

“The Renegade is dead,” replied a new female voice, “he was captured and shipped off to Tron City.”

“Do you know what this is all about then?” one of the guards asked.

“That is above your pay grade sentry!” she snapped coldly. “You two are dismissed.”

“Yes Commander!” they both replied simultaneously.

Seeing as the two guards were about to pass by, the Guardian ducked into a corner. He watched quietly as they walked past, taking note of how well their uniforms matched the environment around them, an overall black suit with bright red accent lines running across their bodies like circuitry.

“She sounds like a bundle of fun. Who was that?” Ghost asked rhetorically.

“Trouble,” he frowned, “especially if we don’t clear the area soon.”

“Agreed,” was all Ghost quietly replied. He did a quick scan through the wall to see if the female soldier was still present. Internally he sighed after finding she had left to search elsewhere.

“Hey Ghost,” The Guardian whispered, “if our goal is to be more inconspicuous perhaps, we should also change our attire a bit to blend in more.” As he said that he gestured to his currently bright white colored armor courtesy of the _Monochromatic_ shader which highlighted his chest piece’s flaming core.

“On it!” Ghost chirped, hovering for a moment while he scoured his data files in search for a suitable shader. “Alright, I think I’ve got something that fits the bill. What do you think?”

After a few moments Ghost responded, “I think I’ve got something that could work.” A render of the armor was thrown up onto the Guardian’s HUD. The clean white replaced by a light absorbing dull black.

“That’s much more discreet,” he looked down at his glowing _Hallowfire Heart_ chest piece and frowned. “Is it possible to do anything about this?”

“Possibly,” Ghost replied, “give me a second.” Ghost scanned the armor section before turning back. “Alright, I think I’ve got it. It will activate once I apply the changes to your armor. However, these alterations aren’t exactly stable, so it is only a temporary fix. If you use your super, any super, it will reset the armor back to its default light channeling state and the flames will re-appear.”

“Are you implying that I should cut myself off from the light?” the Guardian asked, recalling how that felt during the red war.

“Not fully at least. As I said before, no supers or any other massive light discharges.”

“Ghost,” he said looking up at the floating ball, “if find myself in a position where I need to use a super at all, staying under cover probably isn’t a top priority.”

“Or until you get tired of not solving every problem with your fist” Ghost snarked.

The Guardian ignored the jab. “More importantly, does it affect my use of minor abilities or my capability to change subclasses since I’ll be using those more?”

“Changing light subclasses usually requires a complete discharge of the current energy type before the new one regenerates, so I would submit that you should avoid doing that. My armor modifications shouldn’t be affected by your minor abilities though, however, they might be a bit more,” Ghost paused, “unstable.”

“Unstable?” The Guardian raised an eyebrow.

“You may not have control over how powerful the discharge of your abilities will be,” Ghost explained.

“I see, I’ll try to keep that in mind,” he frowned contemplating the problematic implications of such a limitation

 _“Guess I’ll be keeping to the basics for a while_ ,” the Titan sighed.

“Well, let’s get this over with and see if we can find some sort of terminal so we can start getting some answers, preferably before that peevish lady gets back,” Ghost separated his shell into its separate pieces, rotating them around his central piece before pulling them together in a brief flash of light. The armor carried all black aesthetic displayed previously displayed on the HUD, only now it also had a persistent orange glow coating the entire body of the Guardian as well.

“Ghost!” the Guardian exclaimed when he noticed the unwanted changes.

“I told you this modification was delicate,” Ghost replied, “Don’t worry, I’ll fix—wait, I’m detecting movement behind us. We can deal with this later; we need to move, now!” The Guardian, and his now vanished ghost, quickly exited the alley, moving away from their possible pursuer and into the narrow streets of Argon.

_______________________________________

After sending the guards off, Paige now found herself alone to explore the scene. Thinking back to her interaction with the two programs, she was quite proud of the way she convinced them into thinking that she had more information about the incident. Users, she had almost convinced herself, even if she knew exactly as much as they did. She began to walk towards ground zero of the disturbance but decided that an outer perimeter scan would be a more prudent first step in case she could spot any suspicious activity nearby. Climbing up the nearest building she looked out. Despite the clear view of the streets her position gave her, she didn’t see a lot. In fact, the area around the crash site was void of activity, no light cycles, no open shops, no civilian programs out and about–nothing. She frowned, while this wasn’t a sector neighboring Argon Square, it was not much further. Danger warnings went off in the back of her mind. Something seemed off and her trek to the top of the building had failed to clear anything up. She grunted in annoyance before climbing back down the side of the building facing ground zero.

The first thing she noticed after entering the zone was a small crater near the center. The only voxels she saw were scattered around and matched those from the crater. Her inner medic side took a deep breath. _At least there were no casualties caused directly from whatever caused this._

Puzzled, Paige began to walk around the small surrounding area hoping to find something to guide her but eventually found nothing. “Flynn!” she cursed under her breath in frustration. Other than some minor scorch marks on the voxels lining the area around the crater, there wasn’t anything else there that pointed to an explosion that she could go on. Even the walls of the surrounding building were completely free from damage.

 _“Ok, so searching for physical evidence is not getting us anywhere,”_ she thought to herself, “ _at least since I’m not a true security program. Let’s try a different approach. This crater is tiny and has too small of a blast range to have been caused by an explosion._ Even one of the standard grenades that the Black Guard’s carried would have been bigger _. Besides, what kind of explosive causes the_ _clouds to render abnormally.”_

She looked to the sky above her to see if there was anything she could see. Of course, there was nothing there, but it gave her an idea.

_What if whatever happened up there wasn’t triggered by **anything** down here. Maybe--_

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted as she was briefly blinded by an incredibly bright flash of light originating in the alley to her right, temporarily disabling her visual circuits. After taking a moment to recover she looked in the offending direction. “Got you!” she said with a smirk.


	3. The Enemy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First Contact is made

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ulurant is the official language of the Red Legion in the game Destiny.

**Chapter 3: The Enemy**

Paige sprinted down the alley to where the flash had originated only to find it completely empty. “Users!” she huffed as she caught her breath. Frustrated, she exited the alley near where the two sentries had been stationed earlier.

 _“If only she hadn’t dismissed them,”_ Paige gave an exasperated sigh.

She scanned the street, looking for something, anything that appeared out of place, besides the street being eerily quiet that is. She didn’t see anything at first, just the static cold-blue glow of the surrounding buildings. She was about to give up on coming up with a proper search strategy and just start wandering until she found something of interest when the reflection of a soft red-orange glow, not unlike that of an Occupation soldier dimly reflecting onto the sides of one of the buildings caught her eye before disappearing into another alley.

‘ _If she was lucky and this was indeed a lead, perhaps some of her questions might be answered.’_ Paige thought to herself. _‘At worst, she would catch some Occupation soldier slacking on the job who would then be reassigned to the games for disciplinary action. No, that wasn’t the worst case, that would be her getting derezzed by this unknown she was chasing after.’_

She shook to her head to rid herself of the thought. Her concerns were irrelevant, she had to get to the bottom of this. Tesler wanted this dealt with quickly and quietly and that was exactly what she was going to do. Quickly deciding that getting an aerial view of her prey might be beneficial before going in disk spinning, in addition to not getting spotted herself by this unknown, Paige sprinted as quickly as she could up a nearby building’s fire escape.

Crouching down, she peered over the ledge of the roof granting her a clear view of her target. She couldn’t identify who it was or what their designation as program was, but they were not like anything she had seen. Their foreign, bulky armor was completely black, and while it radiated an orange hue similar to her own colors, the thing that puzzled her the most was the complete lack of any visible circuits across their frame. Sure, she had seen programs with almost entirely blacked out armor before. In fact, the mysterious program that had captured Beck stood out as the closest example of that she had seen, but she had never seen armor that glowed the way that this did.

Paige shivered. There were rumors that circulated throughout Occupation ranks of dangerous enforcer programs that answered only to CLU. _“Could this be one of them? If so, what are they doing in Argon? If not--”_ She bit her lip, not wanting to think about the answer to that. She sighed, gathering herself. She heard Tesler’s orders, which meant confronting this unknown program was going to be necessary.

_______________________________________

“Any luck finding an access terminal?” The Guardian asked exiting another back alley.

“I’ve located something a level below us, approximately 40 meters up ahead,” his Ghost replied. So far, they had not run into anyone. In fact, come to think of it, had they seen a single life form since the two guards walked away? “For some reason this feels like a trap,” Ghost commented, “I’m getting the feeling that we’re being watched.”

The Guardian eyed his HUD’s radar. “I don’t doubt it given that I am currently glowing **Bright Orange**!”

His Ghost didn’t reply immediately, but he knew by his reticence that there was a response being suppressed which was probably for the better. “I see the terminal just up ahead,” the little ball of light dodged the comment.

Approaching the access panel, Ghost reappeared although still doing his best to keep out of sight. “And done! This is fascinating!” Ghost said excitedly after disappearing again. “We are apparently in a digital world called The Grid that was created by a human named Kevin Flynn. The residents of this place aren’t organic life forms at all but are Programs who are all coded for different tasks necessary for the operation of this system’s society!”

“Incredible.” was all the Guardian replied. Not out of lack of interest. While he did truly find this development fascinating, and worrisome, he was becoming anxious about staying in one spot for too long, especially given his Ghosts previous insight. “If this is an entire world, then where exactly are we?”

Before his Ghost could reply, a grinding noise, like the sounds of the tools in Holliday’s workshop in the tower make sprang to life behind him. “Argon,” a voice said behind him, “welcome to Argon.”

_______________________________________

Paige pointed her activated disk out in front of her, keeping some distance between herself and her target but not so far away that she wouldn’t be able to disable the program if he made any threatening motions. She looked him over, taking in the appearance of the strangely glowing armor. It was not all black as she had initially examined from a distance. There was odd patterning moving across the black surface as if the armor itself was radiating some form of energy. The joints themselves of the various armor sections had intricate patterns etched into them that were unfamiliar to the standard design of the grid.

Another feature Paige noticed was the stature of the program. While not quite as tall as Tesler, his frame was just as broad giving the illusion of being larger than he was. Her processor instinctively sent out danger warnings about the figure in front of her, warnings she did her best to ignore. “Program, identify yourself!” she ordered. The program’s head cocked to one side for a brief moment as if considering his options. He then slowly turned around. Paige’s eyes moved to see a symbol of what looked to be two hammers crossing over one another imprinted onto the center of his chest piece.

Her eyes wandered up a bit to the face of the program’s helmet. Again, it was unlike anything she had seen before. _“What a surprise_ ,” she thought to herself. Even she was wearing her mask, she could feel a penetrating stare planted on her from this program.

“Last chance, who--” she cut herself off from repeating the question when she noticed this program did not have a disk. She lowered her disk, not deactivating it, but taking it out of the offensive posture she had been keeping it in.

 _A stray?_ Paige pondered to herself. _That would explain why they didn’t know where they were and why they were talking to someone who isn’t there. They probably also had no idea who they were either which made everything more complicated._ She frowned upon seeing the program turn away from her. _Did he just decide that I am not a threat? Fine then,_ she changed tactics.

“Hey,” she tried to sound less threatening, “I need you to come with me. I can help you.” She cringed to herself when she said that. Sure, the program would be given a fresh identity disk, a clean slate, but that came along with a stint at the games which usually meant a quick deresolution for the newly reset programs. She fought past the thought.

 _No--strays pose a threat to the perfect system and need to be handled with proper protocol._ “I’m giving you one final chance. Come with me now, or I will derez you right here.” Paige said sternly as she raised her disk.

This tactic drew a reaction from the program, but not the one Paige was hoping for. She saw the program take a more defensive position, as if he were gearing up for a fight. _Ok, she had to hand it to this program. Delusional or not, fighting her without a disk was a pretty gutsy move._

“Don’t worry,” she mumbled to herself, “I’ll make this quick” as she lunged towards him. Despite his defensive posture, her speed must have caught him off guard as she landed a kick directly in his chest, knocking him to the ground. She brought her disk arm back, getting ready to plunge it through the center of his frame. As she brought it forward towards him, she felt all her momentum cease. Looking over she saw that his left arm had grabbed her wrist holding it in place in a firm grip. She only had a second to try and break free before she too got a kick in chest sending her flying back into a pillar.

 _“Where did that come from,_ ” she wondered to herself. The strength she felt from that kick was only something she had experienced once before, in the arena with Pavel. But he had possessed the upgrade disk, something that this program almost certainly did not. Recovering from her landing she saw that her opponent had gotten up from her knock down but was not pursuing. She stood up disk in hand.

 _“Alright so close range, not a good move with this guy_. _Let’s see how he handles this_ ,” she thought throwing her disk in a wide arc. She watched intently as she saw it looped around him before aiming directly for his back. Her concentration on the disk was interrupted when she saw him beginning to run towards her, or maybe he was running from the disk? Just as she thought it was going to contact the back of his neck he dropped down into a slide, the bright orange projectile missing the top of his head by a thread. Just as she retrieved her disk, he threw a sparkling blue orb right at her feet. Before she could react, Paige found herself instantly blown back against the pillar again, excess energy running through her circuits, taking out her systems. Crumbling to the ground she looked up to see him standing over her before she finally blacked out.

_______________________________________

“You held back during that fight. Why didn’t you finish her?” Ghost asked.

“Why would I do that? I can’t have her following me granted, but that’s not a death sentence,” the Guardian replied.

“If you say so, just don’t be surprised when she makes another appearance. I doubt we’ve seen the last of her,” Ghost snarked.

“Let me remind you we’re not at war with anyone on the Grid. We are here however, whether by intention or by chance and we need to--” he was cut off by the sounds of engines flying overhead. The Guardian quickly ducked into the nearest shadowy area to avoid being spotted. “That engine sound,” he said in a puzzled voice, “I recognize it.” Peeking out from cover the Guardian growled.

“Are you still sure we aren’t at war with anyone on The Grid?” Ghost asked knowingly as heard his Guardian growled in response.

_______________________________________

Paige’s eyes slowly drifted open, the program was gone. “Users!” she cursed to herself. For not having a disk, this guy was highly skilled and unpredictable. She would have to be careful to not underestimate him if they met again. Looking around, she quickly realized that this was not the same place she had been disabled.

Paige quickly jumped to her feet in an offensive stance, but quickly calmed down when she realized that she had only been moved around a corner out of the open.

 _“Well at least I know he_ _doesn’t hold a grudge,”_ she thought to herself as she noted his thoughtful gesture. _“But, if you think that is going to save you from being brought in, think again.”_

Going back to where they fought, she looked for ways out. Other than the direction they had come from originally there was only one direct path in and out of the lower courtyard. Following the path led back to the open streets of Argon leaving her with the split choice on where to go. Considering the situation, she figured if the program she was tracking was responsible for the mess by the crater, they would probably be doing their best to get as far from it as possible. As going right just looped back to the crash site, Paige went left.

Unlike before, there were civilian programs present, going about their cyclical routines. Paige tried to make eye contact with a few of them leading to a few glares back at her. While the Renegade had been dealt with and his uprising squashed cycles ago, many of the programs still felt bitter towards the Occupations presence. She felt a tinge of guilt alongside some nervousness, unsure if these citizens would become potential threats, but she maintained outward composure. She heard an engine roar above her, but just assumed it was just a recognizer out on regular patrol she didn’t bother looking up

Then she stopped. She had forgotten to check how much time had passed since her fight with that program. What if that recognizer was on the lookout for her? She quickly pulled out her disk and checked the memory files, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw it had been only a matter of micros.

 _He could not have gotten far in that amount of time at least, plus he doesn’t know the city._ She still had the advantage, and she intended to use it.

Hearing the engines pass overhead again made her processor pause in confusion. Recognizer patrol patters were usually made up of one standard sweep. They usually don’t double back unless, “Unless, they found something!”

“ _Maybe they found that program!”_ Paige hopefully concluded as she began to run, following the sounds of the nearby engine. She eventually got to a darkened street, similar to the one she first fought the Renegade on. It wasn’t narrow like an alley; in fact, it was relatively wide with lots of crevices to hide.

“Great,” she muttered to herself, expecting to get ambushed by the program or one of Argon’s many streets. Slowly making her way down the path, the roar of the airship resonating in the background, she decided to try a different approach to draw them out.

“Hey!” she shouted. “Look, I know your scared. You are missing your disk, all your memories, your identity, but I can help. All you have to do is come with me peacefully.” Paige’s shouting had gotten the attention of someone, but that someone was not the program she was after. Due to a mixture of her yelling and with the loud background noise, she couldn’t hear the approach of multiple contacts from behind her. “You’ll be given a new disk, the chance to begin again and start fresh. I mean sure, you will have to participate in the games but that’s--” she stopped when she heard a grunting noise come from behind her.

Rapidly spinning around, she was met with a line of very large entities, much bigger and taller than Tesler closing in on her. They, just like the program from earlier were dressed in unfamiliar armor to what she was aware of, but none of them were glowing even remotely. Panicking, she began to walk backwards towards the street’s other exit only to hear the stomping of what was another one of these things. She stopped as she watched herself become completely surrounded.

“What do we do with this one,” one of the creatures asked their Commander in Ulurant.

“Kill her,” the lead soldier growled, “she isn’t cleared to know of our existence yet.”

Paige took a deep breath, closing her eyes in preparation for her deresolution. Their weapons being readied penetrated her auditory circuits before being overpowered by the sound of a loud crash followed by a moan behind her. Instinctively turning around, she saw the motionless body of one of what she could only assume at this point were soldiers of some sort laying on the ground. Standing above it was that program, glowing the same fiery orange color that he had been during their fight. He began to approach her, but she just stood out of awe, but also from a mixture of confusion and terror.

She didn’t even notice that he was now standing next to her, or that some of the unknown opponents had begun to run away. It was only when he sternly said, “Move!” that she snapped back to reality. She watched him crouch for a brief nano and form a large wall between them and those that remained. It was just in time too as projectiles from their weapons slammed into the barrier right after it had fully formed. “We need to go,” he said in a much calmer tone than she expected as a light cycle like object rezzed out of nowhere. He mounted it as the engines in the back roared to life. “Get on!” he yelled as Paige quickly got on the back. With a massive jolt they peeled out of the alley and sped off through the streets of Argon.

Paige had ridden many light cycles with a vast array of different modifications that changed how they operated. She even rode one of Zed’s prototype creations when he agreed to help the Occupation catch the Renegade all those cycles ago. But nothing prepared her for this. The vehicle she was currently riding ripped through Argon faster than any bike she had ever seen during her time on the grid and was probably by her assessment only matched by an Encom 786, a bike that was twice as big. She was amazed that something this small had an engine capable of maintaining such a speed without tearing itself apart. Looking down, she gasped when she saw the bike hovering over the road like a recognizer.

 _“What is this thing?”_ she asked herself as she filed it in her memory under the ever increasing ‘Questions to Get Answers for Later’ folder.

Her thoughts were interrupted when a blast from behind them caused the bike to suddenly swerve. Tightening her grip on the programs back piece to stabilize herself she turned her head around to see a ship she didn’t recognize.

“So that’s what was making all of that noise back there,” she realized aloud.

The ship had a narrow main hull section that formed a T when then branched out into two massive engines. Another blast drew her attention to the bottom of the ship where she saw a large cannon that was attached with what looked to be a relatively thin mounting mechanism. Without hesitation she drew her disk, noticing the program stiffen when she did so, recognizing his vulnerability. “Don’t worry,” she yelled in reassurance, “this isn’t for you!” Twisting back to the pursuing aircraft she threw her disk which cut straight through the pole holding cannon, dislodging it.

Hearing commotion behind him, the Guardian turned around just in time to see bottom weapon get completely dislodged and fall onto the road before exploding. “Nice aim!” he acknowledged as he saw her disk return to her hand before turning his attention back to the road. Unfortunately, the ship was still stubbornly pursuing them.

“Any ideas?” Paige asked sensing he probably knew more about these ships than he was letting on. “I don’t think my disk can do any serious damage to that thing’s hull.” 

He waited a moment before speaking. “See those silver cylinders sticking out of the sides of the ship?”

“Yeah? What about them?” Paige responded anxiously, wishing he would get to the point.

“Those ships have terrible cooling systems, and those parts are the only thing keeping the engines from overheating themselves. A direct hit should cause the engine to shut down.” He replied.

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then,” he paused considering his next words, “we will cross that bridge when we get there.”

“Huh,” Paige frowned in confusion at the odd phrase.

“Just throw,” he sighed.

“Hmm,” was her only response before throwing her disk with as much power as she could muster towards her target. Her disk slammed into the side of the port engine, blowing the desired part clean off. As she caught her disk, she saw the engine begin to sputter, clearly getting hotter as it began to glow red and not long after, white.

Within a matter of nanos, she saw that engine’s output go dark before exploding sending white hot shrapnel in every direction. Facing forwards again, she ducked her head down as low as it could go in her current position for protection as she heard pieces fall to the ground around them. After a micro or so she felt the vehicle come to a stop. She looked up and noticed they were at the docks near the cargo loading area. The program got off the bike first with her following right after. Paige spun around quickly when she heard what she could only describe as a gentle noise go off behind her only to see the vehicle they were just on simply vanish.

Turning back, she found the Guardian looking out over the Sea of Simulation. Cautiously, she walked up next to him, not sure what to expect. He spoke first.

“I surrender,” he said quietly.


	4. Interrogation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Guardian is interrogated and Paige learns of the Red Legion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting this chapter. I was really struggling with revising it. I'm still not entirely thrilled with how it turned out, but I realized that the story will never move forward until I post it. Thank you again for choosing to read my story :)

**Chapter 4: Interrogation**

“What?” she asked again, unsure if her audio circuits were bugging up from the chaos of this cycle. For all she knew he had just asked for her surrender.

“I surrender,” he said again. During their chase, Ghost had been skimming through the information he had pulled from the access terminal and info dropping his findings on the busy Guardian. Now that the situation had de-escalated, the Titan, with his basic understanding of the Grid, decided to play along with her previous demands. He continued, “You said that if I do, I will be given a new disk--”

“And sentenced to the games,” Paige interrupted and added for emphasis.

“I don’t recall you using the word “sentenced” in your sales pitch,” he said in a way that made Paige guess that he was smiling under his helmet. She stared at him, unsure how to proceed. Despite their recent cooperation, she still sensed that he was dangerous, and recent events had done nothing to dissuade that assessment. On top of that he was still a stray, or borderline one at the very least, which meant it was only a matter of time before he would become a walking glitch. She sighed, that was a fate she didn’t wish on even the worst of CLU’s enemies let alone one, who, if she was being honest with herself, had just gotten her out of a tight spot.

_“Unless it was his fault in the first place,”_ she pondered briefly before shaking the thought _._ For a moment she just stared at the side of his helmet, wondering who was under that mask before her processor came out of its stupor. Paige pulled out an emergency tracking beacon but hesitated before activating it.

Noticing this, the unknown program spoke again. “Look,” he said, “I promise I am being genuine in my taking up your offer. If you don’t trust me I completely get it, especially after what you’ve just been through, I too would be hesitant to trust a complete stranger who just a short while ago threw you into a wall.” He took a brief pause and offered both of his hands to her. “Here, if it makes you feel more comfortable you can cuff me.”

Paige shook her head in silent reply before activating a signal beacon. “No, I don’t think that will be necessary.”

She surprised herself when she said that. _“What are you doing,”_ she scolded herself, “ _He is your prisoner and a leading suspect of the cause of both that crater and the anomaly that appeared in the sky!”_ Despite her better judgement, she did not change her mind. There was something odd about this program, not necessarily anything bad, but still something she couldn’t quite put her finger on nonetheless and that bothered her.

Paige watched intently as he turned back to sea after she denied his offer to be light-cuffed. For someone on the verge of becoming a stray, he was very calm and collected about his present situation.

Paige had heard of strays that had been picked up by patrols who found them causing public disturbances on innocent programs to some rambling about seeing Flynn himself. But she detected no excess anxiety, nor noticed any excessive emotional outbursts, noteworthy characteristics of **guilty** programs.

Other than their fight, which technically started when she threatened him, he had shown no sign of wanting to harm her– not even seemingly holding grudge from their encounter. ‘ _That could be because the memory loss has already begun...’_ Paige’s medical programming kicked in, ‘ _no, he is way to stable both physically and cognitively.’_

Her transmitter beeped in response to previous request for backup. “There is a recognizer on its way to pick you up. It’ll be here in approximately five micros,” she added. He slightly nodded before sitting on the nearest cargo crate. She walked over and sat down next to him.

“I’m sure you have some questions,” he said in a monotone voice. She cocked her head.

_Well isn’t that the statement of the cycle_

“I do,” she replied curtly.

“I promise to answer anything you ask between now and when your backup arrives,” he assured her.

Paige narrowed her eyes cautiously; He was being **too** helpful for her taste. “Identify yourself program!” she ordered. “What is your name and designation?”

_“Interesting,”_ the Guardian mused. The default assumption here was that he is a program. _“That means that they don’t get a lot of organic visitors here very often– for one reason or another.”_ He’d have to be careful.

“You may call me The Guardian,” he answered, “or Titan. The former is more specific, but the second one works as well.”

Paige scoffed at the ridiculous name. “The Guardian?”

“You asked,” he countered, clearly amused by her reaction. He hated the name too, but he didn’t have a chance to come up with anything better before everyone at the tower began referring to him by that pretentious title-- so, it stuck.

“I want your actual name,” she tried again, patience wearing thinner.

“That is above your pay grade,” he teased by referencing her conversation earlier.

_“Great, so he heard my conversation earlier with those two sentries.”_ Paige wanted to rip that helmet off and knock that smirk she knew he had right off his face. “ _At least this proves that he was near the crash site.”_

“What is your function program,” she continued her questioning coldly.

“Can I ask you a question,” he asked.

She frowned. _He didn’t answer her question, but expects to get an answer to his own?_ “What?” she snapped.

“Why are you wasting time asking me impersonal questions that could be asked by any trained soldier?” His sudden directness and change in the seriousness of his tone caught her off guard.

“This is standard protocol–” he raised his hand to cut her off. She shot him a glare of annoyance at his posturing.

“You just had an experience that no one here other than me can relate to,” he calmly guided her, “or possibly believe. You have questions; I have answers to those questions.”

Paige felt her outburst of anger quickly subside. While he may have been futilely attempting to keep his identity a secret for a bit longer, he was also being quite logical. The recognizer would arrive soon, and she may not get another chance to learn more about whatever attacked her if, no when this program was sent to the games.

While Paige personally wanted to know this program’s identity, the only practical use of getting the information before Pavel ripped it from this program by force would be to improve her standing in her General’s eyes. “The Guardian” was right though. There were other things that were troubling Paige from the recent events that she wanted answered, both out of genuine curiosity and concern. 

“Who were they?” she asked quietly. “Those programs back there in the alley--

the one’s who I assume were also chasing us in that airship... who were they?” As stoic as she tried to make her voice sound, there was a hint of shakiness which made it through as she recalled herself being surrounded.

That uneasiness did not go unnoticed by the program whose posture changed from calm and casual to one that emanated understanding, _“maybe even concern_.” Paige would have been able to tell for sure had she been able to see his face, but the visible change in body language at least provided some indication. He took a moment, while he generated a proper response.

“They are Cabal, and they are not programs,” he said before pausing to watch her face travel through every emotion before landing on a mixture of shock and confusion. The fact that he carefully avoided finishing with “like you and me” was not entirely lost on her but was superseded by what he had just said. “Those that we encountered specifically belong to a faction called _The Red Legion_. While the Cabal are a species forged from war, _The Red Legion_ had a very specific goal– one singular objective that they’ve stubbornly pursued since the day they overthrew their former government and usurped power.”

Paige felt her processor cycling at what felt like a trillion cycles a second as it sifted through everything that had just been dumped on her. Using whatever training she had to compose herself, she replied. “So, they’re Users?”

The Guardian took a moment to pause as he realized that must be what non-native life was referred to in this world, which if what Ghost had relayed to him back at the terminal was true made a lot of sense. “Yes, I guess technically they are. However, unlike users such as Flynn,” he began as he remembered the name of the person Ghost had said created this place, “who come from a planet called Earth, the Cabal are a species of user from another world in a distant solar system.”

“I see,” she asked. _‘For Flynn’s sake, so now the term **user** not only included humans such as the grid’s creator but now another, what was it he called them, a species_.’ Assuming this program was a telling the truth, this situation was rapidly becoming a mess. “Do you know why they are here?”

“No, but that’s why I am here. I need to find that out and stop them before they do something... stupid,” he said emphasizing the last word.

“How do I know you didn’t just make all this up?” Paige asked. She wanted to test him, to put him on the backs of his feet just to confirm if her suspicions were correct.

“You don’t,” he agreed, “but regardless of whether you want to believe me, three facts remain: they exist, I knew their ship’s weakness, and we escaped them on a vehicle that you have never seen before. Take what you will from that.”

Once again, the Guardian came in with a sound point. Paige frowned realizing what the implications of that were. She saw him look up as the sound of a recognizer came into ear range. His ability to form logical points and the calm demeanor without a disk, his strange appearance and seemingly deep knowledge of the Cabal and their origins all culminated to one truth.

“Hey!” she shouted over the engines grabbing his attention away from the aircraft. “You don’t actually need a disk, do you?” He stood up and started towards the Recognizer while hovered over its landing spot. After taking a couple of steps towards it, he did a quarter turn to look back at Paige who was still waiting for a reply. “Humor me?”

_Did he just openly admit to me that he is what I think he is?_ There were only two groups that did not require disks to survive on the Grid, but her assessment of his “testimony,” if she could call it that, only left one option. Seeing the ramp of the recognizer lower to reveal a row of guards she decided that she would try one more time with her original interrogation protocol. “What is your name” she tried again, missing the eye roll under his helmet.

“That’s still above your paygrade.” While this lack of cooperation would normally infuriate her, she for some reason had to hold back a small smirk. While she was annoyed to be left in the dark, she found his banter oddly amusing, if only due to the embarrassment of the reference.

“Time to go, _ISO_ ,” she sneered putting on her solider persona as she led him to the entrance of the recognizer, completely missing his frown of confusion at her conclusion

_“An ISO,”_ he pondered, “ _what in the Traveler’s name an ISO?”_ Here he was wondering if he had provided too much information regarding his identity as what they called here, a User, but the Commander seemingly was none the wiser.

_______________________________________

“What was I thinking?”

Paige knew “The Guardian” was not an ISO and was confident in her assessment of their identity as a User.

Despite having confidence in her choice to lie about her conclusions earlier, now that her processor had finally slowed down after the incident with the "Cabal", she couldn’t shake the feeling that she should immediately report her concerns directly to Tesler. Why had she even been trying to have a civil conversation with him, let alone give him cover as an ISO? He was an enemy of the state!

Having one User in hiding on the Grid, a piece of information shared to Argon’s top brass after the uprising was quelled, was one thing. Having another so openly present in the city was something else altogether. Either they were extremely arrogant and stupid, or they knew exactly what they were doing, and she had just given them a direct path to the heart of the Occupation’s control on the city, the Colosseum. Paige kicked herself for the thought of what the consequences would be for her actions– _“Deresolution for sure,”_ she winced.

Paige slowed down as she entered a more heavily populated sector of Argon. As she shot quick glances at the programs around her, she had a brief flashback of her getting thrown into a wall by the User. _“No,”_ she realized, stopping her light-cycle suddenly, _“that isn’t his goal at all. If his objective were just to get to the Colosseum and cause chaos, he would have just bypassed me and any obstacles that got in his way_. _”_

“Humor me?” she recalled him saying. _Was it just mere curiosity?_ Somehow she doubted that it was just that. 

Yes, yes it was curiosity, but there was something else. He made little effort beyond some mild masking to hide his being a User. His armor allowed him to blend in color wise, but it didn’t match the surroundings in terms of design. He was open about his knowledge of the Cabal which she was inclined to believe. And when she finally asked if he really needed a disk, he confirmed her suspicions. “He was asking for my help!” she gasped out loud, gaining glares from passersby.

Ignoring them she restarted her light-cycle and sped towards the Colosseum. _“And if what he said about those things we encountered in the ally are true, I’m going to need his.”_

_______________________________________

Unlike he had been with the female program, the Guardian found himself immediately cuffed by one of the guards before being shoved into an energized cage.

_‘Well they sure know how to make someone feel welcome,’_ he thought to himself _._ He watched intently as the same guard who had locked him up walked over to a control panel near the window and pulled on one of the levers causing the ship to jolt.

“ _Hmm, so I’m on the bridge. That seems like a poor choice to hold a prisoner.”_ Except for his lack of knowledge on how to fly one of these things, they were making a possible escape attempt very easy. However, the Guardian held back those thoughts. He had every intention of letting this play out. _‘I promised that I would surrender and go to these “games” the female solider had mentioned earlier. I doubt they’ll be nearly as challenging as something like Gambit Prime.’_

Continuing the dialogue in his head the guardian looked up, ‘ _Speaking of that program, where is she? I guess she had more important things to do than sit here and watch some random “program”_ _be taken to--’_

His thoughts were interrupted by an announcement being made over the intercom, the same voice he realized that he had heard in the Corridors of Time. “Recognizer on final approach to the Colosseum, “the voice said in a neutral tone.

“Hmm an arena-- well at least there will be an audience,” the Guardian muttered quietly to himself.

Other than another announcement about clearing the landing platform, the rest of the trip went by silently and quickly. Once the recognizer had landed, he was immediately boxed in by a group of four guards who promptly escorted down the ramp to what he presumed was where he would be given a new disk to, ‘ _oh how did she put it, “start fresh”.’_

Not long after, the Guardian and the four guard programs were now walking through a large blue and grey corridor when his previously reticent Ghost broke the silence in his head. “I know you were thinking about her back there.”

“Huh,” the Guardian responded not realizing he had spoken out loud. Despite his Ghost having been with him since the Guardian’s first resurrection, he still sometimes forgot that the little ball was always there watching him and listening, even when he was quiet and invisible.

“Don’t think I don’t know what goes through your head; I can read your thoughts,” Ghost jokingly mocked.

“I know for a fact that you can’t do that, otherwise you would protest more while I come up with my plans rather than after I execute them.”

“Who are you talking to?” one of the Guards asked, a mixture of confusion and irritation in his voice.

Thinking quickly the Guardian responded. “Oh that, see I lost my disk,” he said pointing to his back where he figured programs typically put them, “although I can’t seem to recall when. Guess I’m becoming senile.”

The guard behind him clearly was becoming annoyed jabbed him the back with his staff. “No more talking!” he hissed. The Guardian just smirked under his mask. This program might even give Zavala a run for his money for being the grumpiest solider. Even he tolerated Cayde’s antics for a while, although if he really thought about it, it wasn’t like the Titan Commander had much of a choice with the two of them being stuck in the tower. No, never mind Zavala still retained that gold medal.

“Oops,” Ghost teased in the Guardian’s head before continuing their now one-sided conversation. “Fine, but I **can** read your emotions and it was pretty obvious you were at least curious as to where she went.” The Titan just shook his head.

_This was going to be a long mission if Ghost kept this up._

They soon found themselves being led into wide open room. The guardian was brought to the dimly lit center and found himself immediately bound to the floor by some sort of locking mechanism that engaged around his feet. The guards then walked away leaving him to stand in **silence.**

He looked down at the braces holding him in place while he considered his next move. His time for decision making was cut short however when he saw the room suddenly light up, white lines flickering to life on the walls.

After adjusting to the slightly brighter room he noticed a white-haired program sleeping in some sort of containment pod. ‘ _Wait did programs sleep?’_

The query was short lived when he saw the program’s eyes snap open and the pod doors move aside. She approached him with a rigid mechanical walk that was different from any of the military programs he had encountered so far during his so far short visit _._ He also noticed that her suit was different from the others as well. It was a clean white base layer with glowing white light lines for its accent indicators.

“Hello there?” The Guardians greeted curiously.

“I am here to prepare you for the games, _”_ the program replied as if she hadn’t heard him.

‘ _Ok then, not fond of formalities I guess.’_ Under his helmet, he stared at her with a puzzled expression as he thought of a way to proceed. “So, what exactly does that entail?”

“Your armor is unfamiliar and is therefore considered illegal in the games. It will have to be removed for your identity disk to be installed and to sync properly.”

The Guardian shook his head in defiance while laughing a bit. “No, this armor stays on.” Without any reply the white suited program’s finger engaged a miniature torch and began pressing it against what she must have thought were the seams of the check plate.

“You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to get that off,” he said. He was tempted to let a small amount of arc energy run through him to shock her but he thought better of it when he noticed that she was starting to panic, clearly not used to something . After taking a moment to think, the Guardian came up with a possible solution. “Look, if you give me the identity disk, I have the ability able to sync up with it without having to mount it.” She looked up at him skeptically before cocking her head to the side. She suddenly turned around and walked over to a station containing what appeared to be an identity disk.

“Hey Ghost, do you think that when she hands me the disk you could make it look like the sync was successful?” he whispered quietly.

“Maybe, but how would I even do that? I don’t even know what a proper sync looks like!”

“I don’t know, make it light up orange to match my glow or something. Everything else seems to light up around here when something important happens!” He stopped talking when she began approaching him again, this time with a disk in her hands. Upon reaching him, she offers it over. He takes it from her with both of his hands. Channeling a bit of his armor’s excess solar energy to generate a brighter orange aura around him he holds the disk over his head.

‘ _Come on Ghost, figure it out!’_ he thought with anticipation. At first nothing happened, and he could hear the disappointment and annoyance radiating from the white suited program. However, seconds later the disk began to slowly light up orange as well, at first dimly but soon broke out into a radiant glow. After the event was finished playing out, the Guardian looked back to the program standing in front of him.

“Woah, I have never seen that done before,” her eyes widened at the glow.

“You’ve never seen someone like me before,” was all he responded.

“While that may be the case, your armor is still illegal for use in the games. I will have to--” She was interrupted by a figure in standing outside the rooms center oasis of light.

“Do not worry about the program’s armor Siren!” the sharp voice continued, “he is tonight’s star attraction.” A smile spread across his lips as he finished that sentence.

“Star attraction?” the white suited program asked puzzled.

“Yes, of course. I assume you noticed the lack of other programs present in your little hole this evening.” She nodded, “Then it should be obvious that he will be fighting, alone.” The new program placed an emphasis on that last word. Turning back to the white suited program he said in a chilling calm, “Siren, leave us. He and I have something to discuss before we send him up.” She bowed and walked back to her resting chamber where she quickly deactivated herself.

“Commander Paige’s report about you was quite underwhelming,” Pavel began once the room was clear. “Lucky for me, I’m not an incompetent like her and know how to get the information I want, and I plan on doing so—personally.”

_‘Commander Paige eh-- so that’s what her name is.’_

“And what exactly would this information be?” The Guardian scowled under his helmet at the sleazy officer in front of him.

“Paige reported that you were a suspicious stray who happened to be in the area surrounding a major,” he paused looking for a word, “grid anomaly. I want to know what it is and how you triggered it? I want to know everything.”

The computerized voice suddenly spoke, “15 nanocycles until game start.”

“And you really think you can get that information out of me,” he said noting the programs proximity to where he was standing, “somehow doubt that.”

“Are you challenging me, program?” The sleazy program was clearly looking for an excuse to fight.

“Indeed,” the Guardian quoted his Vanguard leader before his left fist knocked the program square in the jaw causing him to land six feet back and into unconsciousness just as the lift into the games began to move upwards. “Just another power-hungry grunt with an ego,” he grumbled.

The game field was quite a bit higher up than he thought, but it was nice to have a moment of quiet to think before having to deal with threats.

He spun the disk in his hands. _‘This is going to be the weapon I’m going up against isn’t it.’_ The Guardian had already faced it once before against Paige, but he had been willing to use his abilities freely at the time. This time was different, however. There would be a crowd, so any obvious use of his light, apart from using it to boost his strength and power, would be noticed immediately. _‘Well it’s a good thing I don’t know how to use this thing.’_

“Hey Ghost, when you lit up my disk, what did you do?”

“I reprogrammed it to match the light signature running through your Armor. It carries an indirect connection to you. Although your unorthodox means of connecting to the disk prevents some of its functions to work properly such as backing up your memories, it is still strong enough for the disk to respond to your will,” Ghost explained.

“I see,” the Guardian said quietly as he examined the disk, urging it to activate. Despite what his Ghost had just told him, he was still taken aback a bit when its edge lit up into a bright cutting blade. “Fascinating!” He could now hear cheering coming from up above as the surface quickly approached. Disk engaged and in hand, he stood ready for a fight. It was show time.


	5. Massacre at the Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Guardian finds himself playing in the Occupation's deadly games as he and his Ghost try to learn more about the world they are now stuck in and possibly recruit help in his fight against the remnant of the Red Legion. Unfortunately his hopes that the organization Commander Paige works under would be open to hear of the threat the Cabal pose to its people are dashed when they reveal their true colors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried posting this chapter yesterday, 11/29 but it didn't update because of the weird backdating system. Got it all figured out now :)

**Chapter 5: Massacre at the Games**

“These guys are all show,” the Guardian laughed to himself as he threw another black guard who was attempting to jump over him to the ground. So far, the tactics of his opponents had all been the same, flashily enter the arena by performing some acrobatic trick, and then charge at him one at a time. Only a few had decided to throw their disks which forced him to clumsily dodge out of the way, but none of them ever seemed to pick up on his weakness, not that he gave them the chance to.

Ghost eyed the area around where the Guardian was standing, there were a lot of bodies. Scanning them he noticed that all of them still had power signatures. Turning towards his Guardian he asked, “you do realize that all of these programs are still alive right? All you’ve done is knocked them unconscious.”

“Hmm,” the Guardian replied distantly, “I hadn’t noticed.” He noticed two programs trying to flank him. He quickly sidestepped towards the one on his left grabbing him before throwing him into the still approaching solider on his right.

“Look, all I am saying is that at some point they will wake up, and then you’ll have to decide whether having to deal with 25 of them at once is worth it.” Ghost shook his frame. “They **CAN** kill you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a disk rapidly flying towards him. _“Might as well learn how to use this thing,”_ he thought glancing down at his disk. Mimicking the form that he had seen some of the guards he had fought using, he sloppily threw his disk at the oncoming one in an ill-conceived attempt to knock it out of the air. Despite the bad technique the Guardian’s disk did manage to hit its target before falling gracelessly to the ground.

“Lucky shot,” Ghost teased, “maybe next time don’t hurl it like a grenade.”

“I’ll hurl you like a grenade,” the Guardian threatened with false seriousness, only breaking a smile when he detected Ghost retreat further away from him.

Retrieving his disk, he looked at the mess of unconscious soldiers laid out around him. “You’d think after all of this they’d have figured out that they are not my enemy,” he sighed while shaking his head.

“You could always try something even more obvious,” Ghost replied.

While the Guardian was contemplating his next move, he heard a solider behind him groaning while they crawled towards their disk. Seeing an opportunity to make a statement to those running this “game,” he slowly walked over to the injured guard. 

Taking advantage of the program’s instability as they leaned over to pick up their disk, he back-handed them causing them to fly backwards not unlike the way that Ghaul had done to him during the early moments of The Red War. Grabbing their disk from the floor with his free hand he turned and moved carefully to where the solider was lying on the ground. Kneeling over the solider he paused, taking a moment reading the body language of the program before bringing the soldier’s disk down with as much forward force as he could.

_______________________________________

Paige’s were still wide at what had transpired on the Colosseum floor as she. She was obviously not the only one who had been thrown for a loop. The normally loud crowd had remained silent even as the challenger walked away from the still rezzed and probably relieved soldier.

Instinctively she had closed her eyes, not because the sight of cubes shocked her anymore, she was a solider and at one point a medic for crying out loud, but when she believed an _almighty_ User was going to execute the defenseless Black Guard, she felt like she was going to be sick.

Once she saw the disk halfway in the floor next to her subordinate’s chest however, Paige quietly let out a breath of relief. As the tension of the situation subsided, she couldn’t help but be halfway impressed with “The Guardian’s” level of control in each hand to hand engagement, not that she was willing to admit that. The very fact alone that he took down nearly 30 black guards without the need to derez any of them demonstrated his fighting prowess. She did note that he had for the most part avoided using his disk for most of the fight, which if his throw was anything to go by was for the best.

“What is he doing?” Tesler was not happy. Besides the embarrassment from watching his soldiers being taken out like they were minor nuisances, the challenging program was looking up towards where the General and his Commanders were situated, motioning them to come and get him in a mocking manner.

“I believe he is provoking you, sir,” Pavel smirked, he hoped Tesler would go down there either to give that program down there the punishment he deserves, or based on the results of recent fight, get humiliated himself. He turned slightly when a sentry entered the room and whispered something to the General who smiled slightly. Pavel increased his audio circuit sensitivity to try to listen in, but they were just out of earshot. Just as quickly as the Sentry had entered, they left.

“Pavel, go down there and see to it that program knows their place, but do not derez them. I want to know who they are before I do so myself.” Shuddering at the thought of meeting that program’s fist again, Pavel nodded. “Oh, and if he doesn’t turn you into cubes and you return empty handed,” Tesler paused, “I will!”

Paige smiled to herself. “ _So Tesler_ ** _is_** _aware of Pavel’s sliminess.”_

Looking down again at the program below, she secretly hoped that maybe “The Guardian” would make an exception to his current rule about derezzing occupation soldiers when he fought Pavel.

“Y-yes General,” Pavel stuttered before quickly leaving the room to ready himself. Tesler did not know that he had one more trick up his sleeve, one that would give him a distinct advantage over the program awaiting him.

_______________________________________

The Guardian stood in the middle of the arena, the unconscious soldiers still littering the area around him. He had tried to get the leader’s attention through an act of mockery but so far there had not been any response. “Well I tried more obvious and so far, they haven’t responded; I wonder what they are waiting for?”

“Well based on how the crowd is now booing you for not killing that guard back there, they are probably trying to determine the most entertaining way of eliminating you.” Ghost looked around anxiously as something didn’t seem right. No sooner had he given his response, that familiar female voice they first heard in The Corridors of Time rang out over the arena.

“Manual Colosseum reset initiated. Please move to the designated safe corners of the field to avoid immediate deresolution.” The voice cut off leaving only the background cheer of the crowd.

“We need to get off of this platform!” Ghost shouted, slightly panicked. Hearing a groan, he spun his shell around to find the program that had just been spared attempting to pick himself up but was still too stunned after his encounter with the Guardian to do so.

Noticing this as well, the Titan ran over and flung him over his shoulder. “Come on, I’m not going to let you die like this.” The Guardian began running towards the edge of the arena as it began to levitate into the air, his armor glowed brighter while he channeled light through his body for an extra boost of strength.

While the Guardian focused on making it to safety in time, Ghost surveyed the rising platform for any means to slow or stop its ascent. His concern for his Guardian came back when he began to see the bodies of the unconscious fighters start to slide towards one of the ledges. His shell slightly separated in horror as he realized that it wasn’t the whole platform that was rising but just one side.

 _“This is how they clear off their arena-- by just dumping the bodies of still living programs into a pit!"_ Ghost asked himself, still not able to fully accept what was happening around him; the screams of terrified programs trying desperately to climb to safety as they helplessly faced their mortality.

Sprinting faster now to compensate for the rapidly increasing angle of platform he charged up one massive leap as he reached the ledge, just barely making it with both of his feet onto the edge of the arena. Putting the solider he was carrying down, he turned to see the center of the arena begin to flip over. He also saw that there were no more bodies falling off into the under area. “They just massacred their own people,” he whispered to himself in shock.

“But why? To what end?” his Ghost added through his Guardian’s helmet.

 _“If I ever see Paige again, I am going to find out if she had anything to do with this,”_ he thought angrily. The Guardian thoughts were interrupted by the loud noise caused by the center of the Arena re-securing itself to the rest of the stadium.

As the ground clicked back into place with the arena’s outer walls, the automated voice came back. “Cleansing complete. New challenger approaching.”

“Well, I assume that is the end that they are waiting for.” The Guardian said flatly. Another grunt caught his attention. It was the solider, he had managed to get up, but his shakiness betrayed his attempt at hiding his injured state.

“Why didn’t you derez me?” He had a confused look on his face.

“Because you are not the enemy,” he said pointing upwards to where those responsible for the massacre sat, “what they did just proved that.”

It was at that moment the soldier realized what had just happened and began to break down. Those soldiers, some of whom he considered to be friends were now gone, but not by who they were told was a dangerous enemy, but by the one he had sworn to fight under. His emotions turned from despair to rage.

“I am going to derez that grid bug with his own disk for what he has just done!” When the solider looked up towards where his leader watched from above, the Guardian saw the primal fire in the program’s eyes.

“We can worry about that later,” he tried to calm him down a bit. He knew that when that next opponent came out this solider would do something rash and be killed in an instant if he was not calmed down immediately. “Right now, we have bigger problems to worry about, like whoever is rising out of the arena’s floor right now.”

The solider looked over to see who he was talking about. His eyes suddenly narrowed. “Pavel,” he snarled.

“Let me deal with this,” the Guardian said while placing a hand momentarily on the program’s shoulder before moving towards the new program.

“Greetings program,” his face twisted with a deep smirk. “It’s felt like so long since our last meet up, I thought I would stop by so we could have some more fun together.”

“If by fun you mean you being thrown across this whole arena for what just happened, then I have no problem obliging that request.” The Guardian gripped the holstered disk on his belt seeing that this program was not entirely stable and that this conversation was only going to result in a fight.

“Ah ha ha ha ha, I’m afraid that’s not how this is going to work out this time.” He then briefly glowed bright red causing a small aura to form around him before he returned to normal. “This time I brought some back up.”

The Guardian’s HUD lit up red, preceding a whizzing sound behind him. Instinctively he dove out of the way as the friendly soldier’s disk went hurtling towards Pavel. Looking up he saw Pavel become a momentary blur before catching the disk midair and returning it towards the solider at a frightening speed. The Guardian turned around just in time to see the disk fly through the soldier’s mid-section, turning him into a pile of cubes seconds later.

“Alright, now I’m pissed!” The Guardian said letting his solar energy Aura burn brighter than before although not quite enough to destabilize his Ghost’s armor modifications. “

Pavel laughed mockingly again before responding. “Then come at me program,” he sneered. The two then charged at each other at their full speeds. The Guardian threw his disk directly at Pavel’s head. While Pavel easily dodged it with a mere tilt of his head, he was distracted enough to miss the Guardian slide before jumping back onto his feet to punch the Commander square in the chest sending him flying. Unlike their first engagement below, Pavel landed on his feet, grinding his disk into the arena floor to slow him down. He still had a large grin plastered onto his face as he again decided to charge the Guardian, only this time he was the one who threw his disk which forced the Guardian to hastily jump to the side, not wanting to risk a wild throw that would leave him open.

While he managed to dodge the oncoming disk, he was tackled Pavel, the momentum of his impact sending them tumbling down the slick floor of the arena. Due to the chaos, Pavel almost gained the upper hand, or at least thought he did. Unlike Paige, he hadn’t fully experienced the Titan’s skill and power in a hand to hand fight.

Grabbing the Guardian’s disk off his belt, Pavel hastily went to drive it through his opponent’s chest. As he brought the disk down, one of the Guardian’s hands tightly grabbed hold of the other side of it. Before he could respond, a powerful kick to his own chest sent him flying away from the Guardian, cubes from what used to be his hand trailing him to where he landed. It was only after recovering from the heavy blow and seeing the program slowly approach him that Pavel noticed his derezzed appendage.

Gritting his teeth in pain, Pavel wildly swung his disk at his opponent who jumped backwards causing him to narrowly miss. Even equipped with the upgrade disk, the odds of his failure appeared to ever increase. Despite this reality, he decided to push forward out of desperation knowing that if he failed to capture the Guardian, his own death was inevitable.

Despite Pavel’s dangerous wounded animal like fighting style, the Guardian saw a small opening. Deciding this was the cleanest way to end this fight, he used his left arm to briefly stop Pavel’s attacks before bringing his head back and throwing it forward into his opponent in a massive Saint-14 style head slam. Pavel immediately collapsed to the ground, motionless; his circuit lights dimming to reflect his new low-power state.

The crowd booed at the Guardian’s choice to spare his competitor once again. While the Guardian ignored it, feeling more relieved that this fight was over, as his adrenaline rush died down, he could feel a minor pain in his arm. Looking down he saw a short, but deep gash in his left forearm. “Ugh one of Pavel’s rabid swings must have clipped me, Ghost can you patch me up?”

“I’m on it,” Ghost acknowledged with a determined voice. Doing his best to stay out of sight while he healed his Guardian before quickly vanishing himself again. “There, good as new.”

The Guardian relaxed when he felt his wound seal up. “Thanks,” he replied, grateful for his little friend’s help.

“They may be booing, but you put on a pretty good show,” Ghost added.

“Hmm,” the Guardian grumbled in response. “This crowd only came here to watch others die; if I gave them a good show, then that was a mistake.”

“So,” Ghost awkwardly started, “what do you think their plan for us is now, or should I say their back-up, back-up plan?” The Guardian silently shrugged in response, not having an answer to his ball of light’s question. Little did he know that his question was soon going to be answered as a small drop of blood gathered on his forearm armor, threatening to fall the arena’s floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I definitely enjoyed writing this one much more than the last one. It seems our Guardian is about to find himself in a bit more of a mess than he had initially intended.


	6. Behind the Veil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Guardian's endeavor to learn more about the Occupation and possibly recruit allies bears fruit, but perhaps not the kind our User had hoped for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lack of posing these past two weeks. I suddenly found myself extremely busy with a small case of writers block. Its a nasty combination. I'm going to to continue to try to stick to my schedule of posting once per week. Hope you enjoy :)

**Chapter 6: Behind the Veil**

“Warning!” the voice rang over the ringing of alarms and panicked sounds of programs evacuating the arena, “Foreign contaminant detected. Please make your way to the nearest safe zone.”

“Looks like they found something of interest,” the Guardian noted flatly as he observed a couple dozen soldiers run out onto the field from all directions, surrounding him with all their disks activated. “Probably us.”

“That is a lot of opposition. Super?” his Ghost suggested.

He scanned the encroaching soldiers before shaking his head. “I don’t think we are participating in _The Games_ anymore. Let’s just see where this goes– if things take a turn for the worst, then maybe,” he replied placing his hands above his head. 

_______________________________________

_So, he was a User!_

Despite her accurate prediction, Paige was still in shock as she stared at the warning message flashing on the screen in front of her. Yes, she had been right, but that surprisingly didn’t make the evidence slapping her in the face any less jarring. Her processor cycled up faster while she just stood there staring downwards at the arena, barely aware of Tesler ordering the soldiers down below to apprehend the User and bring him to the flagship.

“Paige.” She didn’t respond, her thoughts were still clouded. “Paige!” Tesler’s voice was louder this time and managed to snap her back to the moment.

“Sorry, General,” she replied composing herself.

“It appears you’ve outdone yourself again.” Seeing that she looked a bit confused Tesler elaborated. “Somehow, you managed to apprehend a User! Once Clu hears about this, his lack of confidence in us for our troubles with the Renegade will vanish,” he grinned with excitement.

It wasn’t often that Tesler let his facial expressions stray away from his default frown, a fact that Paige only took note of from the rare instances where he did– and thank Flynn it wasn’t often. It was obvious he was out of practice with anything that closely resembled a smile.

Fortunately, his amusement only lasted for mere seconds before his face shifted back into his standard scowl. “I will return to the ship to meet our new guest. Clean up down here; make sure that any rumors regarding the User are squashed.”

“Yes sir,” she said firmly but quietly. Turning halfway back briefly to look over the now empty field, she sighed. ‘ _What game is he playing,’_ she pondered.

Paige had seen a lot of fights–been in a lot of fights, enough to be able to tell if a person was holding back. It had been obvious to her, especially with hindsight that Beck had been doing it all but their earliest encounters. Once the uprising had started however, he made it clear that he was not merely the lucky program that refused to derez others and who only just escaped with his life that she and Tesler had believed him to be. He was skilled, very skilled, and obviously trained by someone who knew how to handle a disk like the security programs before Clu took charge. The most obvious change was his willingness, or rather acceptance, that the deresolution of Occupation loyal programs was inevitable if his revolt were to have any chance of surviving Clu’s arrival.

She shook her head to bring her thoughts back to the present before finally taking her leave of the room. The User appeared to have a plan, one she needed to find out the details of sooner rather than later. 

_______________________________________

After being apprehended again at the Colosseum, the Guardian was quickly escorted back onto another recognizer before being directed to an unknown location. Upon their arrival, his eyes were met by an ever-increasing sea of red as the ramp slowly lowered. The sheer number of recognizers and tanks present coupled by the many programs running around led him to the obvious conclusion that he was not at just some random military complex. The uniform black and red color scheme was a detail that was not lost on him either.

Crossing the expansive hangar led him to a large elevator where the sentries escorting him wasted no time transferring him to a group of six new guards dressed in the same armor as those he had fought in the arena.

As the doors closed and the lift began to move, the nervousness of the guards surrounding him was palpable. In a way, he did understand their anticipation; news of what had happened earlier in the arena had probably spread, and if his suspicions about this red-themed organization were correct, the deaths of their comrades were solely blamed on him.

The doors of the elevator car soon opened and the Titan immediately felt himself being shoved to his knees by the guards behind him. He saw two figures. One, a large figure with a cape draped over his back, was standing by the window looking over the operations in the hanger with his back turned to the Guardian. The other, who he saw approaching, he recognized as the vile program, Pavel. “You said you would only talk to the one in charge, well there he is,” he taunted, pointing to Tesler. “Now– TALK!”

“Pavel,” the General growled, “leave us. He and I have much to discuss.” The Guardian could see annoyance spread across Pavel’s face before he stood up and responded.

“Of course, sir,” he replied storming out of the room like a petulant child. Once Pavel had left the room, he saw the larger figure turn around.

“Greetings User, I am General Tesler.” Tesler looked down at the User with cold eyes. He had never met Flynn, the only User he knew of personally, but he had heard warnings from Clu some of what he was capable of. He had mostly just brushed this off as prideful boasting from his superior after executing his masterful takeover. However now, warnings of caution kept appearing in his task list. Despite his earlier desire to meet this User face to face, now that he had, a part of him was wondering if it had been a mistake. If those stories from Clu carried any truth, then Clu’s newest project could be in serious danger.

After the User failed to respond after a few nano-cycles, Tesler chose to break the silence. “What should I call you, User?”

“I did not come here to discuss myself,” the User stated matter-of-factly. Tesler gritted his teeth at the User’s dodge of the question.

“Then what exactly, did you come here to–discuss?” he growled.

“We are at an impasse, unfortunately. I had hoped to arrange a cooperation between us, one that would protect each of our peoples. But the events at the _games arena_ made it very clear to me that your organization does not share that goal, and I have no desire to work with people who think that murdering thirty of their own is acceptable,” the Guardian spat.

“You murdered those Programs,” Tesler growled.

“That’s the official story is it,” the User let out a short chuckle. “My assessment was correct then; you don’t have a single care for the lives of those who exist below this room. If you did, you would have arrested the program you and I both know is responsible. But that would impact your image and ability to wield power, and you only care about power, about control.”

“You Users are all the same, arrogant– thinking you can lecture me on how to rule. Those programs down there rely on the state, and I am the state,” Tesler retaliated, fists clenched, and glowing white hot.”

“Then we are finished here.” The Guardian ran small charge of arc energy through his wrists, shorting the cuffs around his wrist.

“I’m afraid not,” Tesler started waving two guards over. “As I’m sure you know by now User, your presence here on the Grid is a crime by itself. It’s not punishable by death, at least not yet.” Tesler growled grabbing the User by the chest piece, “Your capture will please our great leader. Don’t worry, my people will make sure you are comfortable for Clu’s arrival.”

He felt the hands of one of the guards behind him grab the sides of his helmet in an attempt to take it off. Taking this as his queue, the Guardian reached up and grabbed the offending program’s wrists, shattering them into cubes with a quick squeeze before kicking the program into the wall behind him. Using the shock of his sudden attack to his advantage, he landed a quick blow to the General’s side, knocking the wind or the Grid’s equivalent of it out of him while leader of Argon slumped to the ground.

He went to face the final guard, but only saw the doors of the elevator behind him shut, no doubt with the fleeing third attacker inside.

The User moved to stand over the injured General who looked up at him with some semblance of fear in his eyes. “They call me, _The Guardian_ ,” the User stated in a chilled, steely voice before walking towards the room’s window.

Wasting no more time, the Guardian mocked threw an arc charged lightning grenade at the window, the bolt of energy causing it to shatter instantly. “Stay out of my way,” he said before leaping out of the window. Landing on the ground he started running towards the exit of the base, _Go Figure_ materializing in his hands while he laid down suppressive fire in the direction of any program that could be a potential problem.

“After him,” he heard a recovered Tesler shout from the balcony looking over the hanger. Seeing the ship’s large circular door begin to close, he quickly summoned his Sparrow and raced down and out of the large circular mouth of the ship.

_______________________________________

The Guardian flew down an empty back road on his sparrow, its nimbleness able to outmaneuver a couple of his pursuers at a previous turn, causing them to crash into the side of a building. The other two were a different story. One of them was in hot pursuit and was quickly closing in behind him. The other had peeled off earlier and had yet to re-emerge, probably waiting to flank him when the streets joined back up. He could hear the bike behind him grow nearer. In attempt to bait the guard, the Guardian drifted slightly to the left, providing space for his pursuer to come up alongside. For a moment, the guard did nothing causing him to doubt his plan.

That lack of confidence quickly dispersed when the program finally decided to take the bait and accelerated. _“Maybe they’re just a little slow?”_ he wondered as their bike slowly pulled alongside him.

Out of the corner of his eye he read the enemy rider’s body language and how he was obviously gearing up to crash the side of his bike into him. His opponent leaned hard to port. Ready for this move, the User took advantage of his sparrow’s momentum and leapt off it towards the guard’s light cycle while his own vehicle transmatted away under his feet, knocking them off before grabbing the handlebars himself.

“Wow, this thing moves!” The Guardian he commented, grinning as he kicked the bike into overdrive. It wasn’t very often that he found himself in a high-speed chase on what was effectively an old earth style bike.

As fun as driving the vehicle was, he remembered that there was still at least one more Guard he’d have to deal with. “Ghost on my mark, transmat me _Devils Ruin_!”

Looking ahead he saw a crossroad and prepared for a side attack by the guard. “Now!” he yelled. Without hearing a response, he felt the weapon attach itself to the side of his Titan Mark. Slowing down, he pulled it out with his right hand, his left arm still holding onto the bike. Sure enough, the final guard made their appearance and were heading towards his starboard side at full speed!

Not having enough time to make a clean shot, the Guardian engaged the weapon’s “close the gap” setting and fired a beam of concentrated solar energy across the front wheel of the oncoming vehicle.

With a significant chunk of the forward section of the bike damaged, its structural integrity began to fail, its once smooth black body beginning to flicker a translucent teal color as its code became visible. Another second passed and what had been unstable code finally started breaking apart into cubes, the instability causing its rider to fly forward over the handlebars.

Unfortunately, despite the significant damage, the bike had not completely fallen to pieces yet and was still rapidly skidding towards the Guardian, the friction caused by the smooth black surface of the road inconsequential in slowing it down. Foreseeing the impending crash, the Guardian bailed from his own bike, gracelessly jumping off the port side. This, combined with the speed of his bike, made for a less than ideal face first landing. He didn’t even bother to acknowledge the sound of the two vehicle’s crashing into one another and exploding into orange and black voxels.

He gave himself a minute before finally giving in and standing up. Doing so, he felt multiple joints in his body crack. Those that didn’t felt incredibly stiff. “Agh, never felt better,” he cracked his shoulder with a humorous groan.

“We should get out of here,” his Ghost commented, “before others come looking.”

“You mean others like me?” A voice interrupted from behind him.

The Guardian swung around, his Ghost quickly transmatting his Guardian’s disk to his hand where it was promptly activated.

The User narrowed his eyes under the helmet when he saw Commander Paige walk out from around a nearby corner.


	7. Common Cause

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Guardian and Paige talk after the tragedy at the colosseum and realize that perhaps they are not the enemies that they both thought they were.

**Chapter 7: Common Cause**

Paige looked over the rigid figure staring her down. Even without him tightly gripping his disk, she could tell he was in a much less pleasant mood than during their earlier conversation

“Look,” she paused as she gathered her thoughts, “I came here to help you.”

“Help me?” The Guardian scoffed. “I think you’ve helped enough for one cycle,” he said accusingly before walking away.

“Wait,” she yelled out behind him. He stopped, not bothering to turn around, “please hear me out.” Her voice had a hint of desperation running through it. “These Cabal... if they’re anything like you say they are--I can’t protect all of these programs by myself.”

The Guardian closed his eyes, trying to process the situation. Here was one of the high-ranking officers among red lit programs apparently showing concern for those supposedly under their protection. Perhaps she **was** different than the others he had spoken with. He had to be sure though. What she had just said were just words and after what happened, he wouldn’t accept some half measure damage control propaganda. Taking a deep breath, he turned back to face her. “Maybe you are better than the others,” he conceded deactivating his disk and clipping it to his belt.

Paige breathed out slowly in relief. At least the chances of him cutting her down where she stood had diminished. Internally though, her processor still churned quickly. _“What does he mean better than the others? Why did it seem like her genuine concern for the programs Argon caught him off guard?_ ”

Despite her inner turmoil, she didn’t let it visibly show. Instead, her experience telling her that he was no longer an active threat, she walked over to him and offered her hand. “A truce?” she offered.

“Agreed,” he said, returning the gesture. Upon making contact, Paige could tell he was working hard to not crush her hand, as if it went against his instinct somehow. She could also feel, power? As a program, she knew it was some form of energy, but whether its presence was because he was a User or something else entirely was unknown to her.

“We’re going to need a plan if we are to deal with this threat without panicking Argon’s citizens,” she said as they pulled apart. “The presence of a single User is a curiosity, but you at least look somewhat familiar. If any of them were to run into a Cabal and manage to not get derezzed–” her voice trailed off.

“Indeed,” the User said in acknowledgment. “Is there somewhere we can go to lay low? Preferably somewhere with vantage points for surveillance of the city.”

“Hmm,” Paige hummed taking in the User’s request. She knew of just the place. “Follow me,” she ordered before starting off down the street.

“You should follow the Commander,” Ghost chimed in, making sure to stay quiet enough so as not to be heard by said program.

“You trust her?” The Guardian asked.

“Not in the slightest,” Ghost answered before disappearing.

_______________________________________

A snow like substance blinded the path in front of him as he and the Commander trudged through rocky terrain. They had made it this far outside of the city on their sparrow and light-cycle respectively, but due to the weather conditions, they or rather, Paige had to dismount her vehicle and the Guardian followed along.

“Where are we going,” the Titan finally asked his guide.

“Why, getting tired in that armor _User?_ ” she snarked. She read his silence before giving in with a real answer. “We’re almost there. Trust me, you’ll see it comINNGGG!” she yelped as she slipped on the ledge of a wide canyon. She tried to grab onto the side, but the snow made getting a grip on the rock underneath impossible. Her fingers slipped off when a hand quickly reached out and grabbed her arm before pulling her back up to the surface above.

It was only upon reaching solid ground that Paige realized how fast her processor was cycling from the incident. “Thanks,” she said letting out a heavy breath as she looked over to the User kneeling besides her.

“Is there a way around this pit?” he asked looking down into the bottomless chasm.

She shook her head. “There is, but it’ll take too long and has a much higher chance of us encountering a swarm of gridbugs. Crossing this gap is our fastest way there.”

“Crossing it?” the Guardian inquired.

“When I initially found this place, I was tailing another program. Let’s just say I copied their technique,” she replied drawing his attention to what looked to be a rock shaped in a similar manner to a half pipe.

“I see,” he replied.

“But the maneuver requires the use of a light-cycle, which in this weather isn’t possible without one outfitted with treads,” she explained.

The User stood in thought for a moment before responding. “Would a vehicle that doesn’t touch the ground work,” he offered.

“Are you saying that your–” she started but paused when she realized she didn't know what to call his ride.

“Sparrow,” he added.

“Sparrow,” she began, rolling her eyes, “is unaffected by the snow, and has been available to you this whole time!”

“You didn’t ask,” he said in an almost teasing manner.

“That,” she snapped, “is a non-answer.” Only when he didn’t immediately respond did it hit her as to why he probably didn’t bring it up. “You don’t trust me,” she said more calmly, slight disappointment evident in her tone.

“I have no reason to, especially after what happened at the arena,” he said noticing a mixture of emotions flash across her face. “Look, I know you are loyal to General Tesler and I can respect that. But after my _conversation_ with him, you too would be hesitant to trust anyone under his command if you were in my position.”

He saw another look appear on her face which he recognized as sadness or regret. “I didn’t have anything to do with that,” she quietly replied, “that was a decision that Pavel made without informing Tesler or myself.” Paige thought back to the time when she had caught him derezzing programs with the upgraded disk who were helpless in their prison cells, a memory that sent a shiver through her code.

“That wouldn’t be the first time that he has performed cruel acts like that on helpless programs just for the fun of it,” she continued. The User could hear the tone of her voice become louder and increasingly bitter as she went on.

“Why do you stand with them,” he asked suddenly, his voice much softer, almost sad.

 _“Why did she stand with them,”_ the question suddenly hit Paige. _“Did she at all?”_ Instead of responding, she suddenly reached behind her and undocked her disk. The Guardian immediately clenched his fist defensively ready for her swing. It didn’t come. Instead, she activated a holographic function on it and began swiping through her memory files.

The User furrowed he brow in puzzlement. “Are those–”

“My memories...yes,” she interjected already regretting what she was doing. She of all people understood just how violating it felt to have someone forcibly access your memories and cursed Flynn every cycle for allowing those disgusting code-worms to exist. Even as she fidgeted through her recent filings, she didn’t really know why this had been her first choice in trying to convince a _User_ of all entities present on the Grid of her disassociation with Pavel’s actions. Was it guilt? Desperation? Or was it something else?

“You don’t need to show me those,” he said softly. “Those are private.”

She considered taking his offer and shutting her disk down then and there, but she knew that being completely open with the User, at least this once was going to be necessary if they were going to get anything done. “No, you should see this,” she said offering him the disk.

He thought about declining it or insisting that she keep it, but he realized the importance of the gesture. If the disk held such importance that it also held a program’s memories, then offering to part with her disk would be the equivalent of a Guardian temporarily parting with their Ghost. It was a sign of trust and she trusted him enough to not violate it.

He reached out and took hold of it, gently maneuvering it in his hands to level out the hologram. “You’re sure about this,” he confirmed with her one last time. She nodded and tapped the play button on the selected file.

The User watched carefully as the events of The Colosseum began to replay from her perspective.

_______________________________________

_About One-Millicycle Earlier_

“What is Pavel doing?” Paige felt her processor cycle up faster and faster as she saw the center of the arena begin to rise and tilt. She knew that he was sent down there to apprehend that program, but no orders were given to execute the unconscious guards lying about the Colosseum’s floor. She ran over to a communications panel and scrambled to find a way to ping Pavel to stand down.

“Paige, what are you doing?” Tesler had seen her run off towards the back of the room.

“I am not going to allow Pavel to senselessly derez all of those guards!” She yelled back. Her medic programming had fully kicked in by this point. She established a communication link, sending a basic ‘stand down’ message. Running back to the window and looking down, she saw Pavel glance upwards towards her as he rose out of the arena’s floor before beginning to laugh. That glitch had gotten her message, and clearly had decided to mock her desperation. While she had deep down expected this, she wasn’t looking forward to him trying to make this somehow her fault. She scowled as she turned to leave.

“Paige!” Tesler growled, not angrily per se, but authoritatively. “It’s too late for them.”

She signed, knowing it was true. By now the arena had already tilted enough that any solider lying down on it were derezzed for sure. She was grateful that Tesler at least understood, or at least she was until he spoke again. “Besides, if you are worried that we’ve lost valuable guards don’t be. Other than the new recruits, the rest of these guards were put in here either because of their own incompetence. I also just received word from Supreme Commander Dyson that we are getting a shipment of black guards and sentries within the next 5 cycles.”

“Great,” Paige replied bitterly. There was a twisting in her core as Tesler gave his reassurances to her. Personally, she wished he had just kept his mouth shut as the thought of programs being perceived as disposable disgusted her. She reproached the glass. She saw Pavel walking across the colosseum floor to where the program and one of the soldiers were held up. There was clearly a heated pre-fight conversation taking place, one that was interrupted by the rescued soldier’s disk flying towards Pavel. She watched closely as Pavel grabbed the disk and sent flying right back at the Guard.

_______________________________________

“That’s enough,” the User interrupted. Paige jumped slightly. She had gotten so focused on the memories that she had lost track of her surroundings. She quickly shut down her disk and took it back from the User.

“I don’t always stand with them,” she asserted placing her disk back in the slot on her back.

The User nodded slightly in response. “You seem like a good program Paige,” he began, “it was wrong of me to assume otherwise and for that I apologize.”

“It’s accepted,” she replied, “I suppose if I were in your position when what happened, happened, I wouldn’t be overly trusting either. Glitch it you’re a User and I’m an Occupation Program– we’re not exactly allies by default. But we’re going to have to put our opinions if we’re going to prevent the Cabal from destroying the Grid, my home.” 

“Then we should get going,” the User agreed, his sparrow rezzing out of seemingly nowhere, “we have a lot of work to do.”

_______________________________________

“General Tesler,” Clu said with a friendly smile, “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon after your message earlier. What’s got your processor spinning man?”

“There is a problem in Argon, sir,” Tesler said, hoping his vagueness would allow him to request reinforcements without revealing his predicament. Not only had he allowed the User to escape and disappear in his city under his watch, but he had also lost contact with Commander Paige.

“Let me guess, the User escaped,” Clu stated as if expectant of this result, his smile never fading which made Tesler even more self-conscious of his failure.

“I assure you; I have diverted every resource to finding this _User_. It won’t be long until we find them,” the General tried to assure his leader.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep General,” Clu warned, his cool facade faltering slightly.

“He did provide a name before fleeing,” Tesler offered, hoping it would be enough to satisfy Clu temporarily while he searched his city for the malware.

“Probably useless no doubt, but I do encourage you to provide humor to this unfunny situation,” a voice that Tesler recognized as Dyson’s pierced his audio circuits through his video screen.

“Dyson,” Clu chimed in, “no need to be so harsh man, I’m sure our good General here is doing the best that he can. Tesler, please go on.”

“Well,” Tesler said fumbling to form a sentence, “he called himself _The Guardian._ ” Tesler’s processor was so wound up from his embarrassment in front of Clu that he failed to notice both his great leader and Dyson shoot side glances at each other.”

“Interesting,” Clu said, his smile having faded almost entirely. If he had blood, his face would have retreated to a shade of white. “Does anyone else know?”

“No sir,” Tesler replied quickly.

“Good,” Clu’s smile returned, “keep me posted on your progress General.” Upon hanging up the transmission Dyson, turned to him.

“Sir, our ally--” he started.

“Yes,” Clu began, “perhaps Tesler’s failure wasn’t a symptom of his poor leadership this time.”

The gold-robed program stood up. Continue monitoring the situation from here and alert me if there are any significant problems that might pose a threat to our greater plans, but be ready to go to Argon at any moment. Tesler’s ineffectualness is a problem we can easily handle, but this _User_ –hmm...” he trailed off as he walked out of the room.


	8. Infested Hideout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Guardian and the Commander have arrived at their intended destination, but find that they aren't quite as alone inside as they had hoped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry everyone for the hiatus. I haven't given up on this story, but I have gotten busier these past few weeks since the new year started. I promise I haven't abandoned this thing. I have most of the story mapped out at this point with drafts for the first half, but editing is very time consuming. I will update this as I have time. For now here is Chapter 8. I hope you enjoy :)

**Chapter 8: Infested Hideout**

“Is this it?”

“Hmm,” she hummed, now focusing on the task of finding the entrance she knew was here. She hadn’t been here for cycles, or more accurately since the end of the Argon City’s uprising and it didn’t help that in that time the already elusive passage into the mountain was now buried under layers of snow. She could hear the User’s footsteps approach behind her.

He let the program continue staring at the expansive rock face in deep concentration while she figured out how to get through the cloaked doorway. Or at least that’s what he guessed it was. He had seen enough radiolarian walls simply vanish because of vex tech that only Osiris had enough experience with to understand, to figure that something similar was the case here.

“What are you looking for?” he finally interjected when the Commander didn’t seem to be making any progress.

“Who said I was looking for anything?” Paige replied with a hint of irritation. Her focus never drifting away from the rock she was brushing snow off of.

“No one, I just couldn’t think of another reason why we stopped at the base of a massive pillar of rock, in a storm, just to stare at a wall.” Utilizing his Helmet’s HUD, the Guardian scanned the surface for strange power readings as he had done countless times on Mercury, Venus, and Nessus. Detecting a faint power signature he traced his hand across the side of the surface, brushing aside the snow as he went until his hand suddenly dipped into a hologram covered hole.

“Is this what you were trying to find?”

“Good eye, User,” she said spotting the panel he found. She walked over and pushed on it. Immediately, a small chunk of the wall flickered away revealing a hidden passageway.“Clever,” she muttered under her chilled breath, no wonder our forces were unable to find it for so long.”

“Shall we?” She turned to look at her, colleague? _Was that the right word, I guess technically if we’re were working together now that term feels appropriate. He hasn’t told me his name yet, or really anything about himself. What is he hiding? Perhaps he would be willing to talk to once they were inside._ Paige brushed her processor’s tangent aside when she saw him nod in agreement before stepping inside right behind her.

A crackling sound of energy caused both of them to turn around as the door sealed them in behind them. As the last bit of the storm faded away, bright white lights lining the floor and ceiling kicked on, revealing an expansive room. Paige derezzed her helmet and looked around the area. _‘This place looks like it goes on forever!’_ She knew that if the door was anything to go by that this effect was just a holographic trick, but it was impressive nonetheless.

“We should take a look around,” Paige suggested, carefully moving forward in case there were any traps. If whatever program who had lived here had gone through the trouble of using cloaking devices to hide this place, it wasn’t beyond expectation that there were more than a few surprises lurking out of sight.

The walked through the silence, the only sound being their footsteps clicking against the smooth white surface of the floor. “What is this place? How did you know about it?” the User asked.

“It was a hideout,” she replied simply. She wasn’t trying to omit information, but her experience here had been limited. “I only know about it because I tailed a program out here cycles ago.”

“Let me guess, one of Argon’s citizens?” the User said with slight accusation.

“No, actually,” she replied with a similar level of aggression, “one of our own.”

“I see,” he tentatively accepted her story. Even after their conversation, the Guardian was still having some difficulty separating her from those that she worked for. The User four more paces before suddenly stopping and holding his fist up, signaling her to stop.

“What is it,” she whispered. He obviously could detect things she couldn’t as evidenced by his ability to find the door earlier.

“You hear that,” he asked.

“No, I–” she frowned. “Wait, yes. I do. It sounds like–Gridbugs!”

The sound of hundreds of small spiked legs clicking against the floor grew louder in her audio circuits but remained out of sight, masked by the holographic emitters scattered throughout the room. Both she and the user moved back to back, both covering each other’s blind spots.

The Guardian could feel Paige’s tension. If these creatures were causing her this much concern, they must be pretty dangerous at least to programs. The tapping of feet continued to rise in volume, almost like the sound of crashing of ocean waves in terms of its asynchronous pattern. Both readied themselves for the inevitable: the program, her disk and the user a lightweight sub-machine gun.

After what felt like an eternity to Paige due to the anxiety of being picked to pieces by a swarm, the first metallic legs appeared from one of the walls facing the Commander. _At least she now knew where the emitters were._

“Contact!” she yelled throwing her disk in a low throw similar to one that would be used to skip rocks. The disk kissed the floor as it cut upwards slicing a dozen or so of the pests in half before returning to her hand.

In that time, the User had turned around to assist her and started firing his weapon at the emerging swarm. He could see Paige glance behind them in case they were being flanked. “You don’t have to worry about that,” he reassured her, not taking his focus off of the oncoming swarm, “my helmet has already marked them as hostile. If any approach from behind, I’ll know.” She stole a quick side glance at him skeptically but shifted her focus back to the problem at hand, and it was becoming an increasingly big one.

While they had the advantage of distance for a period, their upper hand was slowly giving away as more and more of the spider-like creatures appeared. Paige was especially concerned at the increasing width of the swarm as it started to wrap around to the sides. _“There has got to be tens of thousands of them!”_ she thought to herself, her eyes widening in panic. It was then that the first of the bugs finally got close enough for her to slice with her disk.

“This is too close,” she said out loud as she swung her arm in short and precise cutting motions as the bugs lept towards her frame. Paige heard the User’s weapon stop firing for a moment while he reloaded. This was the first time Paige had seen his weapon of choice and frowned at his decision. “Maybe you should have picked something a bit more damaging,” she said as they backed up away from the incoming sea of death, her voice raised in alarm.

“You trust me right,” he replied, catching her off-guard.

“Enough, wh––” she didn’t get to finish her sentence before she was shoved backwards to the floor by his left arm, putting some distance between them. She watched as an electric blue orb formed in his hand before immediately being discharged into the floor, disintegrating the nearest part of the swarm– each pulse taking least a couple hundred of them if Paige had to guess. But it was still not enough to be effective; they just kept coming. She got up, assuming that was the end of the User’s attempt and readied herself to jump back into action when he started firing the gun again. It was only then that she realized his slight orange glow was now clashing with a sparking light blue one. The weapon too she realized had been affected by whatever he had just done as every landed shot caused some of the blue energy to jump to another pocket of gridbugs, disintegrating them in the blink of an eye.

He kept firing...and firing...and firing, not stopping to reload or anything, only once and while stopping to throw another one of those pulsing blue orbs before continuing. Despite still being woefully outnumbered, the Guardian’s onslaught seemingly triggered the gridbugs’ basic survival programming. Just as quickly as they had appeared, the swarm retreated back behind the hologram and out of sight.

The Guardian huffed as the last residual arc energy flickered across his armor before it returned to its steady orange color. “Damn bugs,” he grumbled seeing Paige approach him from the side. “You we’re right, those things are not a good time. Looks like I am going to have to come back down here and clear them out when I have a chance.”

“You’re welcome to try,” she replied surveying the scene. Some of the holo-emitters were flickering from collateral damage revealing the barren rock wall behind them. “Those glitching things infest everything.” Her eyes drifted then towards the weapon he was holding. “I wasn’t expecting that thing to be so effective at clearing out gridbugs."

“It’s called _Riskrunner_ ,” the User explained holding it up, “it conducts arc-energy through its user in order to create that chain effect you saw against that swarm. Stings like anything though.”

“Arc-energy?” the program inquired curiously.

“Its a form of energy similar to what powers many devices in the User world including probably this one,” he explained. “You can identify it from its bright blue color.”

“Like that glowing blue orb you threw after you pushed me aside,” Paige realized.

“Indeed,” he nodded, “sorry about that by the way.”

“I can’t exactly complain. I really have no desire to be hit by another one of those things,” she agreed thinking about their first engagement in the alley. “What are those things by the way. You seem to have a lot of them.”

“They’re are arc-energy pulse grenades. I can generate them over time,” he replied.

“Is that a User thing,” she asked quizzically.

“No,” she said shaking his head, “but it is a Guardian thing.”

“I see,” she said. She still hadn’t gotten an answer out of him on what a Guardian exactly was compared to a “regular” User, but from the way he had phrased it it seemed like he definitely wasn’t the only one.

“If the area is clear, we should keep moving. Why did we come here again?” she asked. Their encounter with the gridbugs had made her forget why they had even come to the outlands in the first place.

“You mentioned something about a view,” he replied dryly.

“Right, I think you’ll like it,” she perked up and started forwards to where she knew a lift to the upper levels was.

_______________________________________

In only a few micros, the doors opened to a large, although significantly smaller room than the first floor, with a massive window that provided a 270 degree view over the outlands and of Argon City. The floor was dark black with light lines running around the edges. Based on the type of equipment she saw lying around, she concluded that this must have been a command center of some kind. To whom, she only had theories and circumstantial evidence at most.

She and the User both stepped out of the elevator together and looked around. They were both clearly thinking the same thing, both tensing as they scanned the room for anything that could be a threat. Finding nothing, Paige’s processor slowed. She approached the window overlooking Argon and gasped. It was a stunning view, ‘almost’ better than her own “best seat in town” on the bridge. She could see everything from Tesler’s ship, to the docks where she had the unpleasant experience of being run over by a biker gang, to Able’s Garage.

The User had made his way over to her side looking out as well, arms crossed. “I don’t know who you followed to find this place, but they knew what they were doing when they settled here. This is a much better view than down there in that alley, I’m impressed.”

“Or in that storm,” she added gesturing towards the clouds above them. “It also appears to have some useful equipment built in that might be of some value if we can get it working,” she said gesturing towards some of the consoles, some of which showing slight to heavy damage.

Seeing what looked to be a shattered plasma healing tank, Paige went over to investigate but soon found herself struggling to stand upright. She must have made some sort of noise because the User bolted over and help stabilize her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked with concern coating his voice. She looked down at circuit lines and noticed their extremely dim color. Paige hadn’t realized until now how exhausted and low on energy she was.

“I’ll be fine,” she replied, “I just need some energy.” He just stood there holding a confused posture. _‘Right, he probably doesn’t know what he is looking for.’_ She snorted a bit in amusement before explaining. “See if you can find some glowing blue liquid, it’ll probably be blue if it comes from the same source that the rest of Argon uses.” He nodded and walked out of the room.

Sitting down against a wall, Paige decided to take the moment alone to collect herself. Paige sighed. This past cycle had been a mess, mostly because of this User. She wanted to hate him, blame him and his kind for the imperfections on The Grid. She shook her head at the idea. Those thoughts were built on pronouncements made by Clu against a group who couldn’t defend themselves against it since he banished Flynn, the only user to ever be on the Grid, until now.

There wasn’t anything particularly treacherous about him that really stood out to her other than maybe his secrecy, but could she really blame him for that. “T _o be fair to him, h_ _e_ _hadn’t exactly had a good first impression of her home since he’d arrived_ , _having been chased down by her, then arrested and finally watching her people murder their own,_ ” she reasoned, “ _and then he found out an enemy from where he comes from is also here for an unknown purpose_ _._ ”

She would have to find a way to bring his wall down eventually, even if it was just to satisfy her own personal curiosity.

Hearing a thud, Paige’s eyes shot up only to see the User misjudge the size of a door frame with his shoulder armor. In his hand he was carrying a cup filled to the top with energy. She smiled lightly, impressed with how he had somehow managed to not spill any of it during his collision. She took the cup from him with both hands and sipped it slowly.

“This is the only blue liquid I could find; I hope that works,” he said innocently, head angled slightly to the left in confusion when he was met with laughter.

“It’s fine,” she smiled warmly as she felt herself become refreshed a bit from the drink, her red circuit lines glowing steadily stronger as she sipped it, “thank you.” A few micros passed where neither of them said a word, just sitting there, both exhausted in their own ways.


	9. Facing Demons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paige learns more about how the Guardian arrived on the grid and comes face to face with her own guilt and regrets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, here is Chapter 9. This one is a long one and the last super dialogue heavy chapter for a while. The next one I promise will have more action in it because that is a lot more fun to read so stay tuned :)

**Chapter 9: Facing Demons**

Paige, having recuperated partially from the drink, was the first to have enough of the silence and decided to start up a conversation.

“You never did tell me how you ended up here? On the Grid, I mean.” She had seen the portal and damage caused by the crash, but she wanted to know why he had come. She intended to keep this off the record, this was mostly to satisfy her own curiosity about the User world after all. That was unless of course she determined the information would be of value to Clu which she doubted.

“Initially I was on a special mission to prevent the Cabal from altering history in their favor, a mission that eventually changed to altering history myself to save a legendary Guardian, another Titan named Saint-14 from an otherwise certain death at the hands of his adversary, _The Martyr Mind_ —a leader of sorts within the ranks of a machine race called the Vex,” he explained. He would have told her more about the Vex, but he still wasn’t sure how much any individual program could process before crashing. And if the information Ghost had been feeding to his helmet was accurate, this system was located sometime in Earth’s past around the late 20th century. It was remarkable that this place was possible at all during that time, let alone a whole functioning society of artificial sentient beings, but there still had to be limits on what a computer from that time could handle. Heck, even Rasputin had limits and he was a Warmind AI that at one time spanned the entire solar system.

“ _So, there **were** more Guardians!”_ she thought, pleased with her guesswork from earlier, but still uncertain about the consequences of such information, especially as his words continued to process.

“Wait, what do you mean, **alter history**?” she asked in a semi-accusatory tone.

“Another Guardian, an exiled Warlock named Osiris had previously built a prototype device that he called _The Sundial._ It worked by connecting itself to the _Infinite Forest,_ a super-computer powerful enough to simulate possible realities. It could simulate entire planes of reality that are based off anything from the simple choice of turning right instead of left, to the removal of key figures in major combat engagements. _The Sundial_ allowed for its user to not only enter a specific reality, including the one the User came from, but change the course of history.”

Paige frowned, “That sounds like a dangerous game to be playing considering the possible consequences. Why would anyone make such a device?” 

“Osiris is immensely stubborn and filled with regret about Saint’s death. The Sundials were created with the express purpose of rescuing Saint-14 and bringing him back into our reality, a problem I was only made aware of after trying to directly purge the Cabal from the system,” he explained.

“Sundials? You mean there is more than one?” she choked.

“The same,” he replied dryly. He had come very close to _fists-of-havocking_ Osiris off one of Mercury’s cliff sides after the Warlock had explained the situation to him.

“Osiris’ obsession with the Vex and their technology has on multiple occasions led to serious messes that I then had to clean up. This time, his carelessness led to the Cabal finding _The Sundial_ prototype which they unfortunately saw as an opportunity to change the outcome of the Red War.” The Guardian shook his head regretfully. “He was so focused on trying to fix a mistake for a time, that he became unconcerned with the consequences of his actions.”

She looked out towards the window, a rush of anger rolling through her circuits. “So, this is all your fault then!” The User looked up, taken aback by her sudden change of tone.

“Commander, I--” she cut him off.

“Do not Commander me,” she spat. “Another User error that’s is going to cost programs their lives. I should have trusted my instincts and never put my resolution on the lines for you––you, who claims to care about protecting the lives of regular programs! Clu was right; you and every User are threats to this system, and I will do everything I can to clean up your mess and stop anymore of you from causing anymore chaos.”

She jumped up and quickly walked to the door. “And I promise if you try to interfere, I will not hesitate to bring everything collapsing down upon you.”

The elevator doors closed leaving the Guardian alone in the room. Was it just him or did the doors seem angrier as well? Just then, Ghost made his appearance shutting down the Guardian’s tangential thought.

“What just happened,” Ghost asked, furrowing the top section of his shell in confusion.

“What, were you sleeping through that,” the Titan replied bitterly. _So much for having an ally in all of this._ He also felt a tinge of something else but couldn’t put his finger on it.

“I think you struck a nerve,” Ghost added.

“She’s a program, she doesn’t have nerves,” the Guardian grumbled.

“You know what I mean,” Ghost sighed. “I’ve been running a personality analysis of her this whole time. Her reaction wasn’t geared towards you, or at least not towards of anything you personally did or said.”

“You can do personality analyses? How come is the first I’ve heard of this?” the Guardian asked, noting Ghosts previous comment but deciding not to acknowledge it.

“I’ve ran them on everyone we have met ever since I first resurrected you in the Cosmodrome. I’m only bringing it up now because I see the way you interact with her and, it’s well—different,” Ghost replied.

He couldn’t see the Guardian narrow his eyes, but he knew he was shooting daggers at his shell. “Hey, don’t look at me like that, it’s obvious. You actually talk to her; you don’t talk to anybody!”

“I talk to you,” the Guardian pointed out. “Not the same thing and you know it. You’re stuck with me. Besides how many missions have we been on where I am the one doing all the talking. I’m pretty sure the last line you said to anyone before today was on the Moon when you asked Eris what the pyramid was. Trust me, this is a very different situation.”

“Right,” the Guardian grumbled getting up. “Alright, let’s get back to work and see if we can get these systems back to working order. Some of these things look to be in pretty bad shape.”

“Wait that’s where we’re ending the conversation,” Ghost protested as he quickly floated to behind his Guardian who was already walking towards the damaged equipment.

“Yes,” the Guardian replied in a tone that Ghost recognized as the same one Zavala used when he was done with a conversation.

“You know I’m right then,” Ghost yelled at his retreating Guardian. “Ugh, Titans,” he groaned in pursuit.

_______________________________________

Paige was still fuming as rode up the steep ramp of the ship. Her processor had been riding a roller-coaster the entire ride, and even as she pulled into her destination, she had yet to make any substantial progress in culling her personal feelings about the situation.

Reaching the back of the hanger, she was met with the subsequent arrival of both Pavel and Tesler. _“Glitch it,”_ she cursed to herself. She hadn’t given herself any time to think of an excuse for why she was so late. Tesler had ordered her to return to the ship immediately after clearing the Colosseum's crowd, and here she was almost an entire cycle later.

“Paige, I ordered you to report back here immediately; where have you been?” the General bellowed—not quite angry, but the glare on his face exposed his displeasure with her tardiness.

“I heard that the User had escaped on my way back to base. When he happened to speed passed me and I decided to pursue,” she couldn’t tell if he was buying her story or not, but she had to do her best to make it seem as true as possible. Well, the first part was true, the second was an exaggeration at best, but if it saved her resolution then she would go with it.

“And?” he said impatiently.

“I lost him in a blizzard in the outlands sir,” she lied.

 _Wait, why was she covering for the User?_ _He was a threat—his people we’re threats...right?_

She had missed or rather ignored it in the moment when the User had mentioned it, but now the User’s explanation of Osiris’ guilt over his loved one’s death and desperation to fix his mistake suddenly hit her and made her stop to question herself.

_If she had the power to undo her own mistakes, would she?_

“Hmm,” Tesler grumbled, shaking Paige from her thoughts. He turned to Pavel, “Get three recognizers fueled and up in the air immediately. I want him found quickly.”

As soon as the sleazebag program nodded and scampered off, he turned his attention back to Paige. “As for you,” he began.

_“Here it comes,”_ she winced internally. _Had he caught her in her lie?_

“There is a matter at the garage that I need taken care of immediately,” the General continued, “Their repairs of our vehicles have been taking much longer than expected and I want to know why! I would have sent Pavel but given his history there, you’re better suited.”

His eyes narrowed when she just stood there. “Is there a problem?” he asked accusingly.

“No General,” she finally got out.

“Good,” he replied and handed her over a data pad. “Read that over and take care of it, quickly this time.”

“Yes sir,” she replied. She took a deep breath when he walked out of the hangar and out of sight. He seemed to have bought her story, not that she would make lying to her direct and only superior a habit. Unfortunately, she was now stuck with a mission that she couldn’t be looking forward to any less. Able’s Garage was the last place she wanted to visit right now especially given her own more personal history with the mechanics who resided there, not that she had a choice on whether she could go or not. The best she could do was hope that her conversation with Mara wasn’t going to be too bitter.

They were good programs the mechanics, much like the other medics at her old medical facility. Still, she knew from the past they weren’t exactly friends of the Occupation to begin with, the uprising not helping matters. Confrontation was probably inevitable.

_______________________________________

Paige’s drive through Argon was sluggish, not from traffic, or from her being assigned to methodically comb the streets for programs caught breaking curfew. It was a personal issue, one that was gnawing at her from inside her memory core. She knew that she was walking into hostile territory, both from the general tones of hostility towards the Occupation, which she could understand to a point, but also personally towards her.

Then there was her final conversation with the Guardian earlier. She still wanted to blame him and his kind for the new threat on the grid, she really did. It would make this problem seem so much easier to deal with, except that it wouldn’t. And the longer that desire sat in her memory core the less justified it felt. Was he dangerous, sure, but so were all Users. The power they held on the Grid and over programs was already problematic back when it was just Kevin Flynn. And once again the Grid, her home, was in danger because of the carelessness of a User.

 _“But not this one,”_ she thought in an attempt to push back against the easy choice—against hundreds of cycles of exposure to clear-cut propaganda that was starting to look duller as the cycle continued. “ _He was here to clean up this mess caused by another’s desperation and carelessness, to help protect her city.”_

She shook her head trying to shake the traitorous thought. “ _No, you naïve glitch! That’s a nice sentiment, but that’s all it is. It’s obvious he only cares about protecting his own people. Why would he care about the lives of programs, let alone ones he has never met,”_ she chided herself.

The struggle in her processor would have likely continued in its unproductive war of attrition had she had not looked up and noticed the large silver structure that housed the garage. Stopping just short of the entrance, Paige collapsed her light-cycle back into her baton. She scanned the scene in front of her, looking for anyone familiar. A good number of the veteran mechanics had either fled Argon or been derezzed by Clu’s forces their meager attempts at retaliating so there were quite a few new faces that she hadn’t seen before. Her core churned; as much as she hated to admit it, familiar faces were the ones who would probably be the most helpful right now even if they trusted her the least. With that she retracted her helmet and began walking towards the gaping entrance of the bright and lively workshop.

Entering, she looked around. The deeper she went into the building, the more tense she felt. Any neutrality this place had once shown towards Tesler’s forces had been flushed out the building. Those that knew her and noticed her presence shot daggers her way, and even those that were new made no effort to greet her. Paige was painfully aware of their quiet mumbling to each other she walked through the garage.

“Commander?” a voice suddenly penetrated her audio circuits. She spun around to find the blue haired program, Mara, standing behind her with her arms crossed. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Um,” Paige tried to remember the reason why she was here, and how she was going to accomplish her objective. Regaining her composure, she managed to get out a more confident reply. “There is.” Behind Mara, Paige noticed some of programs behind her stop working, turning their focus onto the two of them.

Mara raised an eyebrow at Paige’s response. “I see.” She stared a Paige for a few nano-cycles, probably trying to determine whether her presence should be considered a threat or not. “My office then,” she finally said with just enough sternness to mask the venom that lied beneath it, “now!” Paige followed the blue haired program into what she remembered used to be Able’s office before he was killed. Shortly after entering Mara turned to her frowning, “sit!”

Paige nodded and took a seat across from Mara’s desk. “Look, I know what happened–”

“Did you come here to apologize for the past? For what you did, or should I say, did not do, or are you here for business on Tesler’s orders? Either way you had best get to it, Commander!” Paige wanted nothing more than to object to Mara’s accusations of her involvement during Clu’s personal takeover, but bit her tongue knowing that it was going to be an uphill battle to win that argument.

“I came here to inquire on how the repairs of Tesler’s damaged tanks and recognizers are coming along. The General is beginning to get impatient,” she replied reluctantly dropping the subject and sticking with her orders rather than engaging. Reading Mara’s face, she saw–– disappointment?

_Wait––She wanted to discuss what happened? But why?_

“The damage on some of the vehicles was extensive, but not unfix-able. If our current rate of progress remains undisturbed, we should have 70% of the tanks back in working order by the end of next cycle with 3 of the 5 recognizers ready for flight by the next one,” Mara replied with stoic coldness.

“Only 70%?” Paige hummed accusingly. She knew exactly why those last 30% were taking so long and so did the mechanic. If Mara wanted to talk about the failed uprising, then fine, but she would have to do it on the Commander’s terms.

“Oh no you don’t,” Mara protested angrily, “you have no right to put the blame on my crew for that. Do you have any idea on how many programs would have lost their lives if we hadn’t done what was necessary to cripple them before they fired?”

“What would you have had me do,” Paige protested. “You and the Renegade openly declared a revolt against Clu! It was you two who put every citizen in Argon in harm’s way with your blind hope that the traitor Tron was still alive!”

“And who exactly is the one capable of causing harm in this situation,” Mara snapped. “Which overwhelming force were we putting the people of this city in the way of then huh?”

Paige bit her lip. She couldn’t exactly deny it. Sure Tesler, Pavel and herself could blame the Renegade for causing chaos all they want, but the Occupation was the one with the power.

“You know I’m right don’t you, but you can’t openly admit it,” Mara scoffed, “Oh who am I kidding, you can’t even say his name.”

The Commander felt a Paige of guilt, especially the more compassionate medical programming still residing at the foundation of her code. “Beck,” she let out under her breath.

Mara turned away from the Commander and started towards a filing cabinet. “He kept holding onto hope that you would eventually see the twisted nature of the Occupation, of your General, but he was wrong, and he paid with his life for it.”

“There are good programs in that _twisted_ organization who just want to make the Grid a safer place, General Tesler among them,” Paige growled at the insult to her mentor. “Not every program is like Pavel.”

Mara sighed shaking her head, all former anger drained from her frame. “You really believe that don’t you,” the mechanic said sympathetically.

“I wouldn’t stay if I didn’t,” Paige answered confidently. Mara was going somewhere with this, she was sure of it, especially when the blue-haired program pulled out a small safe and placed it down on the table in front of her. “What’s this,” she asked.

“Something the Renegade wanted you to have. He left it with me at the start of the revolution after you made it clear to him that your loyalty to Tesler outweighed the importance of your friendship with Beck,” Mara stated. “He made me promise that I give it to you if you ever came back here.”

_“Of course,”_ Paige realized. Thinking back to her last engagement with the Renegade before Argon was set on fire from above. _He had been pretty much pleading with her to do something, anything to stop the Occupation from annihilating the garage, the birthplace of the uprising. He hadn’t revealed his identity to her then and it likely wouldn’t have mattered. She would have just gone straight back to Tesler and confirmed to him that the Renegade was a mechanic which would have likely ended in–– well she didn’t want to think about that._

Cautiously she reached out and pressed the two buttons on either side causing the lid to pop open. The first thing she saw was a recoding wrench, presumably the one he always carried with him since their first fight on the light-chopper. However, it wasn’t that which drew her attention. No, her eyes were drawn to the glowing red cube in the center.

“Where did he get this,” Paige asked holding up the cube with a mixture of concern and anger.

“He didn’t steal it from you,” Mara asked curiously.

“If he did, he managed it without setting off the alarm this time,” she mumbled.

“This time,” Mara repeated raising eyebrow.

“Did you open it at all,” Paige asked with genuine concern. If there was classified intelligence on this cube and Mara had seen it, Occupation protocol mandated that she would have to be brought before Tesler and then likely derezzed.

“No,” the Mechanic shook her head, “the box was left for you, so I assumed whatever was in there was mean for your eyes only.”

“Good,” Paige said standing up. “You know I have to turn this in, right.”

“I know,” Mara said quietly, “it’s your duty. Just do me a favor, for Beck.”

“Mara if you’re worried, I’m going to report you for being in possession of this, don’t be. This was Renegade’s doing and I will make sure that the blame for––,” she began.

“That wasn’t what I was going to ask,” Mara interrupted. “Beck put those items in there for a reason. Don’t take this as me telling you what to do but, consider looking at that data cube before turning it over, please.”

“I won’t promise, but I will consider it,” the Commander replied with a small smile. “Thank you,” she said turning to leave the office before stopping just short of the door. “And Mara, I am going to do what I can to fix this.”

A look of sadness flashed across the mechanic’s face. “You’re going to need more than a wrench for that.” Paige only gave a small, solemn nod in response before finally leaving the blue-haired girl alone.

_______________________________________

In the outlands, the blizzard had completely stopped leaving the grey and white landscape completely silent with perfect visual clarity for miles in all directions. That was of course apart from a lone light-cycle as it tore through the snow.

It wasn’t the best vehicle given the thick puffy layers of white code littering the rocky terrain, and certainly a dangerous one if the rider were inexperienced. Luckily for Paige, this was not the case as she rocketed towards the spire, her bike perfectly upright–– never wobbling to one side or the other to risk chancing a possibly fatal fall.

The Commander had quickly stopped back at base to inform the General of the garage’s progress. She had also planned on handing over the data cube, but a mixture of hesitation caused by Mara’s words and the General leaving to oversee another matter left her with little choice but to hang onto it for a bit longer. She had considered opening it in her quarters back at the base, but quickly dismissed the idea. If she had been found in possession of it let alone accessing it without authorization—well there wouldn’t exactly have been a trial.

She also couldn’t shake the feeling that the information held inside was personal. Why else would The Renegade return a seemingly random data cube by giving it to her specifically, especially packaged with an item that she knew meant so much to him. Her hand absentmindedly brushed the side of the tool that now hung from her side.

No, she would open it when she was ready. It hadn’t been missed up until this point, she doubted its continued absence would be noticed either. She was certain now that whatever was in the data cube related to her somehow, and that whatever it was would only cause her more pain.

And, if this past cycle had done anything it had revealed to her just how little she had healed since the uprising: the regret, the sense of loss––the guilt. She had spent all this time fooling herself into believing she had moved on when she really had just buried it under protocol and discipline eventually culminating in leaving the confused User in a fit of rage, blaming him for the new Cabal threat and cursing his kind for every issue that ever plagued the Grid, ever.

This wasn’t this User’s fault though, none of it was. Even the Cabal being here was on that Osiris character––if she ever met him…

Paige pulled into the garage of the spire and quickly collapsed her ride and helmet and ran over to the elevator, taking it up to the top floor where she presumed the Guardian was still located.

As the doors receded Paige saw the Guardian standing over by the window and started to walk over, but stopped when she heard—arguing? Stopping suddenly so as not to be heard, she redirected power to her audio circuits.

 _“Who could the User possibly be talking to?”_ she wondered.

Paige wasn’t typically one to be nosy, but this situation was different. If there was a conversation happening, she had to know what was being said.

“Saint hasn’t come through the gateway yet,” a grumblier voice stated.

“Perhaps if your master had done a better job of protecting the Sundial then maybe he would have made it out by now,” another unfamiliar voice said.

“ _So at least three voices then,”_ Paige counted. Who else found this place in such a short amount of time?

“You say that like this is my fault,” the first voice replied.

“Yes, it absolutely is. The Cabal found the prototype Sundial, which was problematic already, and then when we were working on extracting Saint, you allowed the Cabal to take over the not-prototype one that we were using. This is all very much your fault,” the second voice replied.

“You should have been faster in destroying Martyr Mind and getting out of––,” the first voice was cut off by who she recognized unmistakably as the Guardian.

“This is so far from what the most important issue is right now,” the User growled. Paige hadn’t heard him this angry before. The closest was after the incident at the games, but even then, it was more akin to disappointment.

“You’ve made it very clear that you feel it is necessary to protect this Grid as you call it, but my master requires you to go to the gateway and open it for Saint. Nothing is more important,” the first voice argued back.

“And I have made it very clear that as a Titan I cannot allow the Cabal to rampage through cities of innocent people, destroying the lives of thousands. Your master may be able to justify this as an intellectual exercise gone wrong and move on, but I can’t do that. Titans are the shield behind which the Last City stands tall, and that applies to here as well,” the User asserted forcefully.

Paige had heard enough from the sidelines. She was allowed into this conversation. This was her home after all.

She knew exactly when her approach was detected as he spun his larger frame around, instinctively on the defensive, only relaxing when he saw that it was her.

“You came back,” he said, “and seeing how there aren’t any others with you I assume this isn’t an assassination attempt.” She could hear the slight smile and suppressed relief in his voice.

“No, it is not. I actually came to apologize,” she said looking him in the helmet.

“For what,” he asked.

“I blamed you for the Cabal’s presence here, that was wrong of me, especially when I know it wasn’t you, but Osiris who caused this.” She looked at the ground momentarily. “Glitch it,” she cursed before looking back up. “It’s too bad he isn’t here right now; I’d love to give anyone that careless, program or user, a piece of my mind.”

“Actually,” the Guardian voice dropped down to a sourer tone which peaked Paige’s curiosity more than anything. “May I introduce to you, Osiris.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder what kind of information is hiding within that data cube?
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! :)  
> Please feel free to let me know what you think. Compliments and criticisms are welcome.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I am going to attempt a weekly uploading schedule for this, but that may change depending on how happy I am with the quality of each chapter. If you have any questions, comments, or criticisms please let me know :)
> 
> I will add more character tags as the story progresses


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